“Without health, little else matters. Without health for all, everyone suffers.”
— Dr. Jane Philpott
Health is a fundamental human right.
Access to essential health care is a necessary element of the Right to Health. Advocating for equitable access to health care, including prevention, diagnosis, and treatment with affordable medicines, has been at the core of GRAN’s mandate since our beginning. Our work in this area began in 2011/2012 with efforts to effect legislative changes to Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) that would have facilitated Canadian exports of affordable generic antiretroviral HIV medicines to countries of the Global South.
In the years since then, GRAN’s efforts for the Right to Health have focused on:
- Advocating for fair global access to life-saving medicines and vaccines;
- Fighting for improved access to prevention, testing, and treatment for HIV and other communicable diseases;
- Speaking up for child health;
- Speaking up for the right to health of older women;
- Raising awareness about Intellectual Property Rights in international trade agreements that would delay access to affordable life-saving health care;
- Urging Canada’s fair contribution to The Global Fund to fight HIV, TB and Malaria;
- Supporting Canadian legislation M-132 to increase access to health care nationally and globally;
- Calling for an urgent and comprehensive response to the ongoing global TB crisis, including in Indigenous communities here in Canada; and
- Advocating for increased investment in Canada’s International Assistance to address the urgent global hunger crisis.
GRAN works with a number of partners on the Right to Health, including Results Canada, the Global Fund, ONE Canada, and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Many voices raised together strengthen our advocacy.
