Day 2 of IFMSA at the SIXTY-FIFTH World Health Assembly (WHA)

Second Day

Today was the 2nd day of the World Health Assembly-65(WHA) in Geneva and it was indeed a busy and productive day for the IFMSA delegation. There were many meetings scheduled with positive outcomes and also two of our interventions were delivered by Christopher Pleyer, IFMSA President.

Intervention on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)

The intervention on NCDs identifies its crisis on the inequalities of our world. On the intervention, we urge for an implementation of indicators that set “SMART” targets in fighting NCDs.  The WHA65 13.1 Resolution Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (specifically the first two paragraphs) was a hot topic at the WHA65, as many member states and civil society debated the specifics on what is needed in the resolution.

Intervention on Mental Health

The mental health intervention urged member states:

-to take on young people’s mental health

-to create a Mental Health Action Plan that also aligns itself with a set of “SMART” targets in fighting Mental Health

-to include mental health in addressing health inequities.

The basis of this intervention is based on policy statements passed in IFMSA on: the Adolescent Health in the EMR, health equity and social determinants of health, and non-communicable diseases.  The WHA65 13.2 Resolution Global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response from health and social sectors at the country level passed. This can potentially encourage us to scale up our activities in this field serving as a starting point in redoubling our efforts to bring this topic in the global health agenda as well within IFMSA.

All our statements were received with great commendation by state members and other NGOs.

Other Activities

We were invited to a side event by World Medical Association where the 21^st U.S. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius spoke about Women’s Health. She spoke about the importance of Women and Mothers in being essential in providing care to the entire family unit. She also highlighted the health disparities that challenged women, resulting in their poor access and use of health care. She commended the U.S. health reforms as step-forward to address health inequity in the U.S. We had the opportunity to invite Secretary Sebelius to the March Meeting 2013 in Washington D.C. hosted by AMSA-USA.

Part of the delegation attended the side event on eHealth and mHealth to improve maternal health. Some countries showed their experiences on how mobile technology are helping to educate women during pregnancy and enforcing and improving child survival strategies. NGOs and different stakeholders were really keen to show to the delegates that eHealth and mHealth will be for sure a trending topic in the next years, since it is easy to educate people with tools that are in their daily life as cellphones.

Other members attended the event on a global plan towards the elimination of new infection among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive, which was organized by UNAIDS. This event also focused on the different plans some countries are doing to achieve these goals but at the same time it was reinforced that the idea of a multisectorial approach needs to be taken in this matter.

Key Note Speakers for the WHA-65

First Key Note Speaker: Princess of Morocco, HRH Lalla Salma. She states politicians, drug companies & civil society should take responsibility in addressing cancer.

Second Key Note Speaker: Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Jᴓnas Stᴓre, former WHO Chief of Staff under. Dr Gro Brundtland. He emphasizes the partnership between health and foreign policy and economic policy–real opportunities for progress (social/health).

Concluding Thoughts

Today was and important day for the preparations towards the Rio+20 Conference in which IFMSA will have a strong participation through advocacy. One of the plans that was brought up today is the coordination of the social media use during the conference to target authorities, governments, civil societies and other members who won’t be present at the meeting.

IFMSA has a strong relation with the World Federation of Public Health Association (WFPHA). This year we were able to send a delegation to the World Congress on Public Health by sending a delegation to this congress and during the WHA we could follow up on the achievements obtained there. Also it was a good chance to seek for new ways of collaborations with our partners in the public health field.

Our delegation split in order to cover our external representation in the different fields we act. Some of us attended meetings with different departments at WHO, with Doctors without Borders (MSF), the Non-Communicable disease alliance (NCD Alliance) and the World Medical Association (WMA).

Tomorrow

For day 3 we have even a busier day planned and many of our interventions are being presented and also many other meetings are scheduled. We will make sure to keep you updated, follow our twitter and facebook accounts.

Written by: Charles Chineme (RC-Africa), Pablo Vega (LORMA), Christopher Pleyer (President) and Roopa Dhatt (VPE)

IFMSA at the SIXTY-FIFTH World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland

IFMSA at the WHA opening

Ten delegates (Christopher Pleyer (IFMSA-President), Usman Mushtaq (IFMSA- Lo-WHO), Roopa Dhatt (IFMSA-VPE), Alex Lefebvre (IFMSA-Treasurer), Kelly Thompson, Charles Chineme Nqobu (IFMSA- RC Africa), Desiree Lichenstein, Dan Knights, Altynai Satylganova (IFMSA-Lo-PH), and Pablo Vega (IFMSA-LORMA), representing medical students worldwide, are among the group of health leaders, civil society, members states, and non-governmental organization—gathered at the SIXTY-FIFTH World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss how the global community can take on the 21^st century health challenges.

The IFMSA delegation on Day 1–began with a series of informal meetings, networking and attending the launch of the World Health Professions Alliance Non-Communicable Diseases Toolkit and the opening of the WHA with Dr. Chan.

The Non-Communicable Diseases Toolkit Luncheon

IFMSA delegates were invited by the World Medical Association (WMA), by Dr. Klobier to attend this launch of the NCD Toolkit, highlighting the standards for professionals and patients to monitor their health: http://www.whpa.org.

Included in this kit:

1. Health Improvement Card that looks at BMI.
2. Biometric scorecard which focuses on BMI, Fasting Blood Sugar, Cholesterol and Blood Pressure.
3. Lifestyle scorecard which focuses on healthy diet, physical activity, tobacco use and use of alcohol.

Furthermore the toolkit has a section devoted to health improvement action plan for commitments both from the patient and the health professional.

The World Health Professions Alliance composed of International Council of Nurses (ICN), International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT), World Dental Federations (FDI), WMA and International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufactures & Associations (IFPMA) created this toolkit to increase the efforts of the health professionals in addressing NCDs.

Opening of the WHA

 

Dr. Chan opened the World Health Assembly by applauding the health achievements around the globe: India—eradication of Polio with government ownership; Ghana—commitment to guinea worm eradication shrunk its last outpost—South Sudan; Oman—integrated approach to respond to outbreaks and natural disasters; Australia—leads resistance to the tobacco industry’s latest onslaught of aggressive tactics; Indonesia—pushed for pandemic flu preparedness; and the Nordic countries and Canada to promote gender equity and human rights, leading by example.  The example of these countries achievements shows that there are successes in the efforts of governments, civil society, health experts, even if there is slight more to achieve.

Dr. Chan reminds us though we are in a financially constraining environment, a healthy future is still ahead of us and commitment to achieving this is still at the forefront of our efforts in the health community.

The answer that WHO is calling for universal health coverage—as the solution.  “Universal health coverage is the ultimate expression of fairness, between rich & poor, young & old, women & men.” She goes on to say that Universal health coverage is the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer.” As this is the next theme of IFMSA’s GA, IFMSA is at the forefront of discussing these issues and health reform in line with the direction of the international community.

Dr. Chan emphasizes the importance of three areas as we tackle health issues:

1.    Get back to the basics and Be Thrift

•  Turn to cost effective and efficient delivery of care
• Encourage universal health coverage
• Use primary health care
• Increase access to essential medicines
• Take on the challenge of Non-communicable diseases, as they can set back poverty alleviation, pushing millions below the poverty line

1.     Innovation

• “The true genius of innovation resides in simplicity, making usability and affordable price explicit objectives.” –Dr. Chan
• This echoes the turning to simple, easily accessible and usable tools for those delivering and receiving care.
• “Innovation does the most good when it responds to societal needs beyond profit.”—Dr. Chan
• In aligns with using simplicity to reach greater targets—the WHO has developed a Safe Childbirth Checklist to address the huge burden of maternal & newborn deaths that it will be releasing soon.

1.     Values

• We must never forget our value system including social justice, equity and gender equality. –Dr. Chan
• Never forget the people. –Dr. Chan

She concludes the opening with “WHO-We will not let the people down.”—Dr. Chan.  Again emphasizing the commitment of WHO to lead leaps forward in the achieving health for all.

The delegation concludes the day with high spirits and even greater energy to take on the next day.

–Written by: Roopa Dhatt, IFMSA VPE

Second day in Bonn. Getting into work

Everything seems a little bit organized as the second day begins. We know where to go, who to contact or who has to be trapped down. Still many other opportunities to share information with delegates from countries or other non-governmental groups come up.

We work a lot together with the YOUNGOs. Here we found a good platform to get support or information. On top of that we started networking with those related to gender issues. We see many similarities with their objectives and hope that we can build up this first contact.

As I mentioned already we splitted up and now some information are following about what is going on in the different sessions, we attended:

Major session today was the AWG-KP which is aiming to form the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Statements are made by the different intergovernmental groups.

The other big session was the AWG-LCA.

Also the second informal meeting on article 6 took place today. Main debate today was about the question, whether a permanent program should be introduced or whether it should always just for a time period of five years. Since we wanted a permanent program we were happy that such a big discussion started about this point. Considering that just two more meetings are left we are now focusing on mechanism how to implement article 6. Hopefully by talking to delegates from USA, EU and Dominican Republic we can influence the process and introduce our points.