My health, my right

By Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director

The right to health belongs to everyone — no exceptions.

From an early age while growing up in Mali my parents helped me to recognize and respond to inequalities around me. Every day as I returned from school, my friends and I would meet on the street a man called Makan, who was mentally ill. I soon befriended him, but one day he was missing.

With the help of my father, we traced him to where he had been detained. The authorities could not understand why as an 11-year-old I would be asking about him. “He is my friend,” I cried. When I finally saw him, he was in a straitjacket. I could not comprehend why he was being treated that way, although Makan was simply happy to see me. He was able to look beyond his tormentors, set aside his anger for those who had mistreated him and smile at
me. However, Makan had been denied his right to health and other human rights. Every time I see people being denied their right to health, I think of Makan.

We have come a long way since then. Health services and medicines are reaching more people than imagined even a decade ago. People are living longer. Maternal mortality has declined by nearly half and childhood mortality has decreased by more than half. Hundreds of millions of children have been immunized. Who would have thought 10 years ago that 20
million people would be accessing HIV treatment?

But there are millions of people dying each year of preventable diseases. It need not be this way. It should not be this way.

The AIDS response has been a pioneer in fulfilling the right to health. Its hallmark has been giving a voice to people living with HIV and giving affected communities and civil society the means to demand their right to health. People took to the streets, demanded access to lifesaving medicines and for prices to be brought down and challenged human rights violations.
They demanded confidentiality and treatment with dignity and without discrimination. They challenged workplace policies, education policies, gender and sexual norms and lack of investment in health systems. They became part of the solution, at the forefront of service delivery.

However, it is the duty of the state to ensure that everyone has the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. The inequities in access to health are not acceptable. Gender inequality, lack of education, sexual violence and harassment, climate change, urbanization, conflict and humanitarian crises all create conditions in which the right to health is denied.

All people, regardless of their age, gender, place of residence, sexual orientation or other status, have one body, one life. It does not matter if someone has HIV or breast cancer, a sexually transmitted infection or diabetes — people, no matter what their health needs, require comprehensive health solutions that are accessible, available, acceptable and of good quality. States have a duty to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the right to health of everyone. And the world has committed to Sustainable Development Goal 3, to ensure good health and well-being for all.

In this spirit, we are focusing on the right to health to highlight the gaps in access to health, not just of people living with and affected by HIV, but of everyone. From Baltimore to Bamako, heath inequities must be erased.
You have a right to health.

Read more in UNAIDS’ new report Right to Health.