Caribbean needs fresh investments in eliminating stigma among health workers
KINGSTON, 3 March, 2016— UNAIDS and the Global Health Workforce Alliance are launching an Agenda for Zero Discrimination in Health Care. The agenda supports a vision for a world where everyone, everywhere, enjoys health services without discrimination and where the health workforce is empowered to provide discrimination-free services to all.
Many people around the world face barriers to accessing quality health-care services and realizing the highest attainable standard of health. The multiple reasons for this vary across countries and communities. Even where health-care services are available and of good quality, people often experience or fear stigma and discrimination, which prevent them from accessing the health services they need and are entitled to receive.
The Caribbean situation
The University of the West Indies and Health Policy Project conducted studies on stigma and discrimination among healthcare workers in four Caribbean countries. Around one in seven respondents thought it was appropriate to sterilise a woman living with HIV, even if this was not her choice. One in three said people get infected with HIV because they engage in irresponsible behaviour. At least one of every five healthcare workers reported observing a co-worker being unwilling to care for a patient living with HIV or providing poorer quality of care to those patients. About one in ten respondents said they would prefer not to provide services to men who have sex with men and sex workers.
“Prejudice in healthcare settings is undermining opportunities for people to participate fully in society and to care for their families and themselves,” said UNAIDS Latin America and Caribbean Director, Dr. César Núñez. “The stigma and discrimination that persist in health centres are linked to late detection of new cases of HIV and the difficulty of retaining people living with HIV in care.”
About the agenda
The agenda offers a space for collaboration between countries, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, other United Nations and intergovernmental organizations, professional health-care associations, civil society, academics and others to take coordinated action for achieving zero discrimination in health care.
The agenda will prioritize coherent joint actions in three critical areas:
- Political support: by increasing political commitment through mobilization of all key constituencies, to secure prioritization of this agenda at all levels.
- Implementation: by fostering scale-up of implementation of effective actions to achieve discrimination-free health care.
- Accountability: by promoting monitoring and evaluation frameworks and mechanisms to build evidence, monitor progress and ensure accountability.
The action plan outlines seven priorities; these include: building and sharing evidence and best practices; standard-setting; ensuring meaningful engagement of the people most affected by discrimination in the development, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes; and strengthening the leadership of professional health-care associations.
A virtual community of practice has been created to mobilize more partners around the shared vision and action plan, to join contact ghwa@who.int.
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