Every year, approximately 18 million people
die from preventable or treatable diseases.
They die of malaria, tuberculosis, and dengue
fever. They die of malnutrition and they die
from dysentery. Most of all though, they die
because of poverty.
Each person in this room is fortunate enough
to be one of the wealthiest people on the
planet, that might sound ridiculous, but we
must remember that over 2.5 billion people
live on $2 per day or less. About 1 billion
of those people live on less than $1 per day.
When one third of the world's population has
to live on a daily income of less than what
we might spend on a cup of coffee, it is not
hard to recognise the difference between rich
and poor.
The world's poorest people are also the most
vulnerable to disease, they are the most likely
to get sick and the least likely to receive
medical treatment when they need it.
My thesis is based on the idea that every
human being, regardless of race, religion,
nationality, or ability to pay is entitled
to at least a basic minimum standard of health
care. That might not sound like a particularly
controversial claim, but there are those who
would deny this entitlement even to their
fellow citizens, not to mention those living
in other countries. In addition there are
a many people who acknowledge the right to
health care, but don't recognise the full
extent of what that right requires.
I think that access to health care is an absolutely
fundamental human right; one which makes it
possible to enjoy all of our other rights,
and facilitates enjoyment of at least a minimally
decent life. My thesis provide the justification
for this basic right to health care, and explores
what the right requires in terms of what people
are entitle to, and which people must provide
it.
There are a lot of theorists around the world
working on questions of global justice, some
of them even specialise in health care justice,
but no-one offers as comprehensive an account
of a justification for the basic right to
health care, what it requires, or of the people
who have to provide it, as that provided in
my thesis.
Unlike a large number of theorists, I do not
think it is sufficient to merely not harm
people; I think that for a right to health
care to mean anything it has to provide a
guarantee that care be available when needed,
and it must offer protection against the kinds
of threat which are an all too common feature
of the lives of millions of people around
the world.
I would like to leave you with one last fact,
I mentioned that 18 million people die every
year of diseases we can treat or prevent.
That is equivalent of about 50,000 people
per day, or around 2,000 per hour. Which means
that since I started talking roughly one hundred
people have died because at some point we
chose not help them. The goal of my thesis
is to contribute in some way to making that
number much, much smaller.
