Topic: Healthcare as a Human Right
Country: Lesotho
Delegate Name: Bryant Hepp
School: Kalamazoo Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Lesotho position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
The right to healthcare is as polarizing an issue as it is complex and multifaceted. While Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) clearly states that all persons have the right to enjoy the highest attainable standards of health by ensuring access to an adequate healthcare infrastructure, the covenant does not explain how this right is to be interpreted or enforced. It is each member's duty—as a representative of their people and of the world—to address this issue in a responsible manner that respects the views of all nations present.
As a nation deeply dedicated to providing health services for its people, Lesotho is open to reasonable discourse on the subject of healthcare. The Basotho people, as well as their government, believe in free and competent access to healthcare as a right of all citizens. However, the Kingdom of Lesotho also sympathizes with underdeveloped and developing nations around the world, and recognizes that a mandate for governments to provide accessible healthcare may not be efficient or effective. While Lesotho invests nearly 10% of its GDP in healthcare for its citizens, the increasing severity of the AIDS pandemic has lowered life expectancy from 59 years in 1990 to 45 in 2010. Nearly one out of every four Basotho is infected with the HIV virus, and population growth has declined to less than 1%. Additionally, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) is expected to see a financing gap of over 95 million dollars by 2013 for the treatment of AIDS/HIV alone. If the United Nations is to demand extraordinary performance from developing nations, it is imperative that well-to-do member states also provide extraordinary resources for developing nations to access.
The Kingdom of Lesotho has much to gain from clarifying the rules and regulations surrounding the right to healthcare and healthcare access. It is important, however, that the global community take note of cases—such as Lesotho’s own— in which extraneous circumstances override the government’s obvious attempts to improve both the access and condition of healthcare in their nation. This prudent yet optimistic approach to the status of healthcare as a human right is expected to appeal to other countries with a high HIV/AIDS prevalence rate (such as Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe) and nations which spend a relatively high percentage of gross domestic product on providing healthcare for their citizens (such as Norway, Belgium, Canada, France, and the United States). Lesotho looks to this committee to address the legitimate concerns of each nation's government as well as its people, and to agree to a practical and implementable solution for all member states.
