Health: State moving backward, movements going forward

• How are health services and the entire social sector impacted by the policies and conditions created by the current government in India?
• What are the emerging creative struggles and initiatives to improve the functioning of the public health system and private medical sector?
• How are we to defend community nutrition and prevent malnutrition?

Dr. Abhay Shukla has worked on these issues for more than 15 years and is currently attending the Global Health Conference in Vancouver.  He will be visiting AID Seattle and Bay Area chapters to talk about the present crisis in health and efforts to address them, in Maharashtra as well as at the national level as part of the National Rural Health Mission.  

His talk on Monday, Nov 21 will be livestreamed via google hangout and everyone is invited to join and participate in a live discussion with him following the talk.

Abstract: 

“It is during the darkest moments, that we must strain to see the light” – Aristotle

India today is facing an unprecedented time in its history since Independence. Within a context of major political and social changes which appear to be suffocating the very ‘Idea of India’, the ‘Welfare state’ is being replaced by a ‘Warfare state’. Thus basic social services and entitlements, such as Health care and Nutrition are seeing a major restriction of public funds, accompanied by emerging policies that would facilitate massive takeover by commercial and corporate actors. Health is becoming Wealth in the very real sense.

Fortunately, these developments, though deeply ominous and threatening to people’s basic rights, are not going unchallenged by Indian people. Various movements and initiatives are being developed across the country in innovative ways, to both counter the policy onslaught, and to present progressive alternatives. Hence in the talk, following an analysis of recent developments in the Health and Nutrition sector in India, some examples of people-centred initiatives in Maharashtra which offer rays of hope, will be shared for discussion.

About the Speaker

Dr. Abhay Shukla, M.D. is a Public health physician, with a postgraduate degree in Community Medicine from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Based in Maharashtra, he has been working for more than 15 years on health issues in collaboration with people’s movements and grassroots NGOs. He is presently Coordinator of SATHI-CEHAT, and is a National Co-Convenor of People’s Health Movement – India. He has co-edited the books Review of Health care in India, Report on Health Inequities in Maharashtra and Nutritional Crisis in Maharashtra; he has co-authored the People’s Health Movement-India booklet Health system in India – crisis and alternatives and has authored the book The Rights Approach to Health and Health care. He has been centrally involved in developing the framework of Community based monitoring of health services at national level (as part of the National Rural Health Mission – NRHM), is involved coordinating its implementation in Maharashtra, and is a member of the NRHM Advisory Group for Community Action. He is actively involved in development of Health rights activities at national and global level.

The Association for India’s Development Health Cell brings together volunteers interested in advancing the agenda of Health for All through engagement with movements and organizations working in India on a rights-based approach to comprehensive, holistic and universal health care.

Volunteer for Health:

Join Health Cell