HMS/HSDM Class Day
• Martin Offers Grads Guides for Listening
and Leading
• Grads Take a Look at the Bigger Picture
HSPH Class Day
Health Care Is a Right, Asserts Former Mexico Health Minister
Class Day Photo Gallery
Congratulations in Order
Faculty Symposium
Getting to the Molecular Heart of Heart Disease
Class Symposium
• Class of ’82 Recounts Paradigms
Passed
• Alums Share 25 Years of Adventure, Inspiration
Alumni Symposium
HMS Initiative Urged to Break Implementation Bottleneck
Brain Size and Signal Decline with Advance of Schizophrenia
Tail Injection Cures Brain Inflammation in Mice
Regulatory T Cells May Lull Immune Activators to Sleep
McNeil to Serve as Acting Medical Dean
Sports Medicine Makes Gain with Thorndike Chair
HSPH CLASS DAY
Health Care Is a Right, Asserts Former Mexico Health Minister
 Suzanne
Camarata
In his commencement speech at HSPH, Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health for Mexico, argued that health care is a social right, so all people should receive similar treatment for similar needs.
|
Health care is not a commodity or a privilege, but a social right, said Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health for Mexico, who delivered the commencement address at HSPH on June 7 in the Countway Courtyard.
“The premise here is that all human lives have the same value and that health systems must represent instances where everybody, regardless of gender, race, national origin, or socioeconomic status, must receive similar treatment for similar needs,” he said. “Since the great majority of health deficits are involuntary, it follows that no type of discrimination in access to health services can be morally valid.”
While he was health minister, Frenk led a major reform of the Mexican health care system that helped provide care for about 50 million impoverished Mexicans. He is now a visiting professor at HSPH.
Frenk described several overarching paradoxes facing health care worldwide. Never before has the power of science been greater, yet millions die unnecessarily from preventable and treatable diseases. Many countries have rural communities without doctors, while urban communities have doctors without jobs. Unprecedented sums of aid are flowing into developing countries, but that aid is rendered ineffective when the resulting intellectual capital emigrates. And while health is a key factor in the fight against poverty, health care itself is so expensive that it can impoverish people.
These conundrums can be addressed by developing evidence-based policies and by transforming ideals into what Frenk called “the integrity base” for coherent action.
Taking a broad view of public health during his address, HSPH dean Barry Bloom noted that public health has emerged as a front-burner issue on national and international agendas due to issues such as bioterrorism, HIV/AIDS, and extremely drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis.
|
“There is probably no other area of human endeavor in which the application of thought and resources can make so profound a difference in as many people’s lives as the world of public health and biomedical science.” |
“Perhaps for the first time, you, our graduates, will not have to explain what public health is to your families and friends,” he said. “We are entering a time of heightened awareness about public health and a recognition that, as our former President Larry Summers once said, ‘There is probably no other area of human endeavor in which the application of thought and resources can make so profound a difference in as many people’s lives as the world of public health and biomedical science.’”
The School awarded 473 graduate degrees in public health this year, including 404 master’s degrees, 17 PhDs, and 52 other doctoral degrees. More than half of the graduates were women and one quarter of the students came from countries outside the United States. MPH recipient Joel Kase delivered the student speech, and Mark Clanton, a chief medical staff officer of the American Cancer Society, provided greetings on behalf of the alumni.
A short video, webcast, photo gallery, and transcripts are available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/commencement/index.html.