ESF health activists link up

Socialist Resistance no36 | page 19-20

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Health campaigning has developed as a major strand of ESFs, and the Athens events saw a succession of well-attended workshops organised jointly by the People's Health Movement and the European Network for the Right to Health (PHM-REDS) and spanning every day from Wednesday through to the Saturday.

Issues addressed included privatisation and the impact of the Bolkenstein directive in the EU, the situation facing health workers, alternative models for health care systems, combating inequalities in health, the issue of the drug international discussion. industry and the fight to control both prices and the research agenda, imperialist war and the denial of the right to health (with delegations from Egypt, Palestine and Iraq, and forging links between health workers and campaigners in Europe and those in developing countries.

A final seminar brought together speakers from Italy, France, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, UK (John Lister from London Health Emergency) Catalonia and Brazil, and renewed the impetus to building national groupings to follow through the