The People’s Health Movement (PHM) Julio Monsalvo region, encompassing Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, on Saturday, November 11, welcomed general medicine practitioners and other activists for a launch event ahead of the 5th People’s Health Assembly. The Assembly, scheduled to take place in Mar de Plata, Argentina, from April 7-11, 2024, will be rooted in the understanding of the concept of buen vivir (Good living) and the importance this concept holds for the global building of health for all.
The launch was attended by the PHA 5 co-conveners, Carmen Baez and Hani Serag, as well as members of the local organizing committee and PHM Global Coordinator, Roman Vega. Addressing a hybrid audience during a session organized at a congress of Federacion Argentina de Medicina General (FAMG), the organizing team expressed the hope that the assembly would, once again, bring together thousands of activists to re-imagine the landscape of global health and discuss intersections between health, gender, conflict, and climate, among other topics.
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In addition to looking forward to the next assembly, participants also reflected on past global meetings to find inspiration and perseverance. From the first assembly in Dhaka, Bangladesh, held in 2000, PHM activists have used the meetings as opportunities to strategize about critical points: from the impact of economic crises on health systems to the growing influence of commercial determinants of health.
One point that came up during previous assemblies on multiple occasions, unsurprisingly, was the interconnectedness between the Palestinian struggle for liberation and the right to health, both globally and locally. The health crisis currently witnessed in Palestine, as Israeli attacks on hospitals and health centers in Gaza intensify, once again emphasizes the importance of health movements standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine, an imperative that will certainly be responded to in the lead-up to and during the 5th People’s Health Assembly.
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