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The right to health in Zimbabwe: Human Rights Bulletin Number 41
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
February 2009

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What the right to health entails

The right to health is the right to the enjoyment of a variety of facilities, goods, services and conditions necessary for the realization of the highest attainable standard of health. This right is guaranteed not only by timely and appropriate health care but by also determinants such as access to safe and potable water, adequate sanitation, an adequate supply of safe food, nutrition and housing and access to health - related education and information.

This Human Rights Bulletin has been prepared against a background of the collapse of basic service delivery such as health, education and food in Zimbabwe. The aim of this particular Bulletin is to examine the collapse of the health system in Zimbabwe and to consider the Government of Zimbabwe's (GoZ) international obligations in terms of guaranteeing the right to health for its citizens, and the internationally accepted benchmarks that the Inclusive Government must aim to achieve to ensure the attainment of 'the highest standards of living' for all Zimbabweans.

The Right to Health and Zimbabwe's International Obligations

Zimbabwe is party to legally binding treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights among other treaties that observe the right to health. Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic Cultural and Social Rights states that:

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health

Under the general obligations clause of Article 2 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a State Party is required to take legislative and other steps to the 'maximum of its available resources', with a view to achieving 'progressively' the full realization of the rights recognized in the Covenant, including the right to health. This means that the Government of Zimbabwe has a legal obligation to all its citizens to be concerned about their health needs.

Furthermore, the 1998 Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights notes in Guideline No. 10 that "resource scarcity does not relieve States of certain minimum obligations in respect of their implementation of economic, social and cultural rights". Thus if the Zimbabwe government should argue that it is unable to meet its minimum obligations to the right to health for its citizens because of a lack of resources, it must at least be able to demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all resources that are at its disposal in an effort to satisfy those obligations.

Apart from these obligations, international law creates a number of legal obligations on every state to respect, protect, promote and fulfill the enjoyment of human rights by all those under its jurisdiction. The obligation to respect health rights requires the Government of Zimbabwe, and thereby all of its organs and agents, to desist from carrying out any discriminatory and retrogressive practices or sponsoring or tolerating any practice, policy or legal measure violating the rights of the individual to health. In Zimbabwe's case the responsibility to respect health rights requires the State to refrain from such acts as sending away patients from health centres because they are members of an opposition political party.

Concurrently, the obligation to protect the right to health obliges the State and its agents to prevent the violation of any individual's right to health by any other individual or non-state actor. The Government of Zimbabwe, therefore, has a duty to protect its people by making sure that the privatization of health services does not interfere with access to such facilities by poor people, and that medical practitioners and other health professionals meet appropriate standards of education, skill and ethical codes of conduct.

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