Health and Social care services

The health situation in Nigeria is similar to that in many other countries, where insufficient funding is allocated to environmental health and universal healthcare and people suffer as a consequence. Femi Abolade, an Environmental Health Officer and a member of the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria, denounces the situation not only in his country but across all continents.

“Care work, both paid and unpaid, is at the heart of humanity and our societies.” From cradle to grave, as children, adults and elders, directly or indirectly, care work ensures our self-development and the reproduction of social life. More than three quarters of care givers are women and girls. And most of these provide unpaid care work in their families. This contributes significantly to the reinforcing of gender inequality.

On 26 November, PSI General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli, with the leadership of Kommunal, meet the Chairman of the Health Committee in the Parliament, Hon. Joseph Nyah Somwarbi, at the House of Parliament of Liberia, to lobby for the rights of public sector unions and workers such as the National Health Workers Union of Liberia (NAHWUL) to be recognized formally and legally and to be allowed to unionize in line with ILO Conventions.

PSI participated in the 6th Violence in the Health Sector conference that was held in Toronto on 24-26 October on the theme “Advancing the Delivery of Positive Practice”. The conference provided a platform for all parties confronted with the phenomenon of violence in healthcare to develop and implement positive practice and proactively respond to this complex problem.

#SolidarityWithRefugees  PSI is launching the first video, of a series of three, on building quality public services for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. This first video focuses on quality public healthcare for all.

Healthcare is the most important issue of concern to Americans today. In an exit poll conducted by the Cable News Network (CNN) during the mid-term elections, 41% of respondents voted for healthcare as the “most important issue facing the country”. Immigration, economy and gun policy received 23%, 21% and 11% of the poll respectively.

PSI has been providing solidarity to the Alliance of Filipino Workers (AFW) to build power by organising new members. PSI asked its affiliate the SEIU, the largest health sector trade union in the USA, to partner with the AFW to transform their approach to growth amongst hospital workers with positive results now emerging.