Topic: Healthcare as a Human Right
Country: Palestine
Delegate Name: Audrey Gilmour
School: Flint Southwestern Classical Academy
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Palestine position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
Many countries believe that healthcare is a human right which should be extended to all citizens. There are also many countries that feel healthcare is too large and expensive a system to be required. Though the opinions differ, all of these countries share the common goal of a large and healthy population. Healthcare has been mentioned in several documents such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a human right. However, it is the responsibility of this committee to decide where the lines should be drawn on this issue.
Palestine welcomes the idea of being able to provide for its people. With issues such as infant death rates, a strong health system readily available to all Palestinians would be ideal. However, the population, lack of funding, and inability to break off from Israel hinders any hope for such a health system. According to these complications, Palestine must argue that healthcare should not be required. Defining health care as a human right would be tricky. Each state wants to maintain a healthy population and provide the necessary services to do such. Palestine supports defining healthcare as a human right, it does not support requiring healthcare. Requiring health care would force many burdens on small and developing nations.
To find a resolution that most, if not all, countries could agree on, this committee should examine the possibilities of providing financial aid to those countries in need. We should most certainly define healthcare as a human right. Instead of requiring that all states provide healthcare, in the case that the term is defined as a human right, they should be encouraged to make healthcare available to all citizens. Financial aid should be provided for those countries that do want to make an attempt at creating a universal healthcare system.
