COVID-19 exploiting inequalities in our societies and health systems, says WHO Director General
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, World Health Organization will warn of the danger of nations turning inward as the COVID-19 pandemic exposes the gaps in our health systems at the launch of the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2020) on 5 November.
“Now, more than ever, we need to work together across boundaries towards the common goal of stronger health systems. We must build health systems that reflect the equitable societies that we want to live in.”
- Date: Thursday 5 November
- Time: 13:00 GMT
- Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJv3vT5CaPklx2hX0V9P8VA
With ten years to go to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”, from 8-12 November, more than 2,000 health practitioners, policymakers and researchers will come together virtually to examine how to meet that goal in COVID times.
Asha George, Chair, Health Systems Global (co-organizer of HSR2020) said:
“The Symposium serves as a fulcrum for building connections across communities, facilitating conversations across constituencies. In doing so, we seek to spark creative and critical thinking, strengthen capacities needed to deepen understanding and mobilize collective action to rise to the challenges presented by our ever more complex worlds.
We do so to advance stronger, more responsive and resilient, people-centred and just health systems for all, as a collaborative endeavour that is inclusive despite the power hierarchies and inequalities that mark our world both historically and presently”.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Esperanza Ceron, Executive Director, Educar Consumidores, Colombia, is a health activist known in the Latin American region for her work to openly confront the massive soft drink and junk food industry.
- Jacqueline Ann de Guia, Attorney, and Spokesperson for the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines
- Zahed Katurji (Hamza Al Kateab), Syrian Doctor, human rights activist and public health advocate (his experience and work during the Aleppo Siege was documented by his wife in the award-winning Channel 4 Documentary “For Sama”)
- Kristie L Ebi, Professor of Global Health, University of Washington, USA, and lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C
