WHO: The right to health
Fact sheet N°323
Reviewed November 2013 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs323/en/index.html

Excerpt
Key facts
:: The WHO Constitution enshrines the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being.
:: The right to health includes access to timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality.
:: Yet, about 150 million people globally suffer financial catastrophe annually, and 100 million are pushed below the poverty line as a result of health care expenditure.
:: The right to health means that States must generate conditions in which everyone can be as healthy as possible. It does not mean the right to be healthy.
:: Vulnerable and marginalized groups in societies tend to bear an undue proportion of health problems.

The right to health means that governments must generate conditions in which everyone can be as healthy as possible. Such conditions range from ensuring availability of health services, healthy and safe working conditions, adequate housing and nutritious food. The right to health does not mean the right to be healthy…
General Comment on the Right to Health
To clarify and operationalize the above provisions, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which monitors compliance with the ICESCR, adopted a General Comment on the Right to Health in 2000.

The General Comment states that the right to health extends not only to timely and appropriate health care but also to the underlying determinants of health, such as access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, an adequate supply of safe food, nutrition and housing, healthy occupational and environmental conditions, and access to health-related education and information, including on sexual and reproductive health.

According to the General Comment, the right to health contains four elements:
:: Availability: A sufficient quantity of functioning public health and health care facilities, goods and services, as well as programmes.
:: Accessibility: Health facilities, goods and services accessible to everyone. Accessibility has four overlapping dimensions:
–       non-discrimination
–       physical accessibility
–       economical accessibility (affordability)
–       information accessibility.
:: Acceptability: All health facilities, goods and services must be respectful of medical ethics and culturally appropriate as well as sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements.
:: Quality: Health facilities, goods and services must be scientifically and medically appropriate and of good quality.

The right to health, like all human rights, imposes on States Parties three types of obligations.
:: Respect: This means simply not to interfere with the enjoyment of the right to health (“do no harm”).
:: Protect: This means ensuring that third parties (non-state actors) do not infringe upon the enjoyment of the right to health (e.g. by regulating non-state actors).
:: Fulfil: This means taking positive steps to realize the right to health (e.g. by adopting appropriate legislation, policies or budgetary measures)…