Healing the Health System: An Alternative Activism
摘要
People’s health organizations have played an important role in both the prevention and cure of diseases. Pamphlets, magazines, and leaflets dealing with the prevention of disease had been published to raise people’s awareness. In the case of curing disease, they have tried to offer an alternative model. They proved that it is possible to get good medical care at low cost. These organizations, in addition to providing healthcare facilities for preventing and curing disease, put pressure on the government to do its duty properly. Networks and organizations from across the country which had come together to organize the National Health Assembly (2000) took initiatives to continue and develop that coalition of movements in the form of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (People’s Health Movement—India). This chapter investigates the history of the movement led by these organizations. In this context, the study examines the movement of junior doctors, who coined the slogan that “Health is not a matter of charity; the right to health is one’s fundamental right.” It investigates how Left ideology had an impact on the people’s health movement.