NationStates Jolt Archive

REAFFIRMING that the United Nations has a responsibility to promote and preserve the highest levels of world wide physical and mental health;

HAVING ADOPTED the following resolutions;
1) “Keep The World Disease-Free!” on Mon Apr 14 2003,
2) “Required basic Healthcare” on Thu Jun 5 2003,
replaced with “'RBH' Replacement” on Thu Jun 26
2003,
3) “Global AIDS Initiative” on Sat Oct 18 2003,
4) “No Embargoes on Medicine” on Fri Oct 24 2003,
5) “Increased Access to Medicine” on Sun Dec 28 2003,
6) “Fair Treatment of Mentally-Ill” on Wed Jan 21 2004,
7) “The IRCO” on Mon Sep 1 2003,

EMPAHSIZING that health issues, disease, and illnesses are not confined to one nation and are most effectively dealt with collectively by international cooperation;

RECOGNIZE that international healthcare policies, the deployment and utilization of the International Red Cross and medical practices are most effective, efficient and safe only when based upon current, accurate independent, and empirical based data;

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the ever changing health issues, the global nature of pandemics, increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the need to be abreast of the latest scientific and medical findings, the need to enforce existing health resolutions, and the need to monitor world health issues;

CALLS UPON the United Nations to create and provided funding for the World Health Organization (WHO);

DESIGNATES that it will be the responsibility of the WHO to:
I - Promote the highest levels of world health, as defined as a state of complete biological/psychological well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
II - Reduce rates of mortality and disability.
III - Construct policies and actions based on ethics and evidence based scientific empiricism.
IV - To monitor world health crises and recommend appropriate responses to member States and relief agencies, including the International Red Cross.
V - To monitor global health and illness trends so that policy makers can make decisions based upon the most recent and accurate data.
VI - Set, validate, monitor, update, and pursue, the proper implementation of evidence based medical norms and standards.
VII - Promote international cooperation through the common goal of improving world health.
VIII - To promote further technological and methodological developments in the health sciences.

We've been fairly horrified in reviewing the disorganised, piecemealy and directionless state of past UN resolutions on health, and would welcome an initiative to approach this in more holistic fashion. Our major concern is how this would be funded. This isn't going to be cheap - you're going to need to employ the best statisticians, doctors and researchers about. And the UN isn't allowed to directly impose taxes for its initiatives. It's particularly important to ensure that the WHO has no political or corporate agenda - if it was funded, for instance, on voluntary donations by member states, there's a real risk that it could end up being run by a coalition of corporate-controlled nations who would use it to play down the risks of smoking and fast food while pimping their own pharmaceutical companies.

We'd love for someone to come up with an alternative, but for the minute we can't think of one because it's very early and we're all aimlessly wandering around the Embassy trying to remember how to make coffee.

Also:
III - Construct policies and actions based on ethics and evidence based scientific empiricism.
This sounds like UN policymaking without needing to go to the trouble of consulting the member-states. Is this proposal in draft or has it already been submitted? If the former, we would appreciate a more active level of involvement for member-states; not wanting to make your organisation toothless or anything, but a lot of nations are going to be pissed at having their domestic health policy dictated by an unelected committee. Issuing recommendations and coordinating international efforts would make more sense than such a wide-ranging mandate.

Elsepeth R. Nibbling
Ministry of Being Nice

This sounds like UN policymaking without needing to go to the trouble of consulting the member-states. Is this proposal in draft or has it already been submitted? If the former, we would appreciate a more active level of involvement for member-states; not wanting to make your organisation toothless or anything, but a lot of nations are going to be pissed at having their domestic health policy dictated by an unelected committee. Issuing recommendations and coordinating international efforts would make more sense than such a wide-ranging mandate.

Elsepeth R. Nibbling
Ministry of Being Nice

Hear... hear, Minister Nibbling has spoken wisely on this topic. The Grand Duchy favors increasing health-care for all citizens of the world. We do exercise caution in how this policy is implemented... we do not see how creating a new UN supra-agency will further these noble goals.

Sick people do not need more bureacrats or red-tape... they need doctors, nurses and medicines. The monies that greedy UN bureacrats will suck out... can be better spent on the ill, injured and handicapped.

Diego MacBernstein
Envoy to the UN
Grand Duchy of Laio

The government of The Grand Duchy of Hamptonshire agrees with Minister Nibbling, and Envoy MacBernstein. The world does not need a UN mandated Hyper-agency that infringes upon the sovereign powers of the nations of the world, but an organization committed to coordination of information would benefit all members of the UN.

Lord Easton
Envoy to the UN
The Grand Duchy of Hamptonshire