Equal Access to Healthcare for Everyone

Wivine

Wivine, a nurse at the Zainabia health centre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

In the EU’s Health Commissioner's own words, where you live should not determine whether you live or die. But EU countries seem to believe that this only holds true within Europe’s borders. In the rest of the world, we have seen the EU, again and again, putting Big Pharma interests above people’s health. Nice-sounding words do nothing to change a system increasingly captured by commercial interests and one that puts profits before patients.

As the pandemic gradually recedes, countries are engaging in discussions about ways to "build forward better". 

There are a number of proposals to revise the international health framework, adapt the global health architecture, and enhance the system for developing, producing, and accessing health products. The EU, through its Global Health Strategy and its position in international forums like the WHO and WTO, plays a key role in shaping these processes. 

Oxfam wants a world where everyone has equal access to healthcare, where countries are prepared for health emergencies, and where low- and middle-income countries have medical research and development and production capacity so they are not reliant on aid or the goodwill of rich countries and private companies.

Oxfam works closely with the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which calls for equitable access to medicines for everyone.