Health and Human Rights Programme

 Undergraduate Teaching
 

Training health professional students in human rights is increasingly recognised as critical for producing graduates able to incorporate social justice and equity into their practice.

The Health and Human Rights programme ran a 5 day short course in Health and Human Rights targeting teachers of students in the health professions from 1998 through to 2013. The course trained over 250 academic staff and health professionals responsible for teaching in a range of institutions across South Africa and the African region and provided them with tools, skills and ideas for how to mainstream human rights in their teaching. You can download the manual used for teaching here and adapt it for use in your own context.  Although the course has been discontinued, the materials are still freely available for use and adaptation under a Creative Commons copyright license – share and share alike.

Various commentaries and publications have emerged from this work, including:

• Ewert EG, Baldwin-Ragaven L, London L. Training Trainers in Health and Human Rights: Implementing curriculum change in South African health sciences institutions. BMC Medical Education 2011, 11:47.
  This publication evaluated the training offered and found evidence that trainees had managed to implement curriculum change in their institutions following the training courses.

Other opinion pieces include:

• London L, Baldwin-Ragaven L, Kalebi A, Maart S, Petersen L, Kasolo J. Developing human rights competencies for South African health professional graduates. S Afr Med J 2007; 97: 1269-1270.
• L London, Baldwin-Ragaven L. Human rights and health: Challenges for training nurses in South Africa. Curationis 2008; 31: 5-18.
• London L. Human Rights: A professional responsibility and an institutional obligation. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy 2008; 38: 1.

Postgraduate Courses
 

The Division of Public Health Medicine runs a module on Public Health and Human Rights on the MPH programme (PPH7053) which aims to equip MPH graduates with an understanding of the place of human rights in developing and assessing health policies.  MPH students may also choose a human rights topic for their MPH dissertation under supervision.

The HHRP has also taken on dissertation-only students (M Sc and PhD) conducting their research on health rights topics.
 

^{Train-the-Trainer Class of 2013}

Research in the HHRP has been in four areas:
 

1. Identifying how to include human rights in health professional training. Linked to the Train-the-Trainer in Health and Human Rights, the HHRP has explored the effectiveness and scope of integrating human rights into curricula for health science graduates.
    
2. Exploring how human rights can be integrated into Public Health Policies. In public health, there is a tendency to trade off human rights for the public good. Research in the programme has examined how human rights can be integral to better public health policies, understanding when it is legitimate to limit rights for the public good and when public health is better advanced by clearer articulation with human rights standards in policy.
    

3. Understanding and developing better practice for the realisation of the right to health for communities. The HHRP has worked regionally through the Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) and locally through the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN) to identify good practice for the right to health. The latter work has focused in recent years on community participation and health committees as vehicles for the realisation of the right to health.
    

4. Research with vulnerable groups to reduce their vulnerability such as the Deaf:

• An anthropological perspective from Cape Town on the right of access to health care for Deaf people who use South African Sign Language
   
• Deaf children’s access to health care in Cape Town, 2020

Toolkit on the Right to Health
 

The Toolkit on the Right to Health was designed in response to the need for a practical tool to empower communities on what the right to health means, how to identify violations of health rights and how to respond to these violations. It can be used as a stand-alone source of information or as training tool for workshops on the right to health. To download the Toolkit on the Right to Health click here
 

Video on Health Committees

Right to Health Pamphlets
 

English Version
 

 

• The Right to Health

• Community Involvement and the Right to Health

• The Patients' Rights Charter

• Individual and Collective Rights in Public Health

• Access to Information and the Right to Health and Health Care

• Rights and Resource Allocation

Afrikaanse Weergawe
 

 

• Die Reg op Gesondheid

• Betrokkenheid by die Gemeenskap en die Reg op Ggesondheid

• Die Handves van Pasiënteregte

• Individuele en Gesamentlike Regte in Openbare Gesondheid

• Die Reg om Inligting te Ontvang en die Reg op Gesondheid en Gesondheidsorg

• Regte en die Regte Gebruik van Hulpbronne
   

Inguqulelo Yesi Xhosa
 

 

• I-lungelo kwezeMpilo

• Ukubandakanyeka koluntu nelungelo lezempilo

• Itshata yamalungelo ezigulane

• Amalungelo omntu ngamnye nawomntu wonke kwiinkonzo zempilo zoluntu

• Ukufikelela lula kulwazi namalungelo empilo nokukhathalelwa ngokwasempilweni

• Amalungelo nokwabiwa kwemithombo yoncedo kwezempilo

• A Special Noon Meeting Seminar was held on 12 March 2015 by Professor Fons Coomans and Dr Helen Cox on The Right to Benefit from Scientific Progress and Access to Medicines for Drug Resistant TB