Reshaping Health Care Systems

Across the globe, we witness distressing inequalities in health care along the lines of gender, race, disability, class, age, rural-urban dynamics, and sexual diversity. This is a challenge to the values of democracy and social justice as well as to people’s participation in society. In order for people to be part of a democratic society, they must be healthy: physically, mentally, and socially motivated to be active in the local community. Adopting an intersectional lens, we propose solutions that take into account the experiences of marginalised groups in health care, often overlooked in public discourse. All solutions must be adapted to the local context and be conscious of different needs depending on the region, culture, ways of communication, lifestyles, as well as power relations informing the provision of and access to health care. We therefore propose the development of two areas: education and research on health care inequalities, and the implementation of practical solutions affecting citizens (mainly in the area of diagnostics and treatment) and health care professionals.

1. Providing free and regular testing and eliminating taxes on sanitary products (e.g., menstrual products to combat menstrual poverty);
2. Strengthening the advocacy and inclusion of medical practices that take into account biological differences between men and women or races to increase and encourage safety, in research and development (e.g., seat belts, sports harnesses, cancer detection);
3. Facilitating access and funding for health care/clinics in more rural, and ethnic areas, for example, supporting the elderly and immobile by organising and scheduling targeted care drives in rural areas with health professionals and increasing the availability of tests in places where there is limited access to clinics and doctors (e.g., in lower-income districts);
4. Empowering health care workers through the provision of a fair wage and regulations ensuring adequate break times, and increasing support for carers, taking care of children, the elderly, or people with health conditions or impairments, by, for example, providing a fair wage, psychological and medical assistance and training (e.g., on how to work with the body and relieve physical tension);
5. Legalising the provision of and access to information on abortions as well as facilitating access to safe and legal abortions, including quality post-abortion care.