Making health care for all a reality

• Every minute, a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth
• Every hour, 300 people die of an AIDS-related illness
• Every day, 4,000 children die of diarrhoea caused by dirty water

Millions of people in poor countries get low-quality health care, or are forced to go without it altogether. Fees are too high, hospitals and clinics are too few, and lack of medical staff means people struggle to get treated.

The result?

Unimaginable suffering – much of it absolutely preventable. And ever-deepening poverty too, because illness affects people’s work, and damages economies.

And until people get basic services like cheap health care and clean water, it’s going to continue.

Doctors – a luxury?

Good health care is a fundamental right, not a luxury.

People everywhere should be able to visit a local clinic or hospital, and get care and affordable medicines, whenever they need them.

Oxfam is determined to make this a reality.

Start locally

Oxfam works directly with people around the world, helping them to get better health care.

In Zugdidi in rural Georgia, for example, we supported local organisations as they set up basic, affordable care in villages with many former refugees. With our help they built and renovated low-cost clinics in 27 communities.

Oxfam famously provides clean water and sanitation in emergencies, too. More than half a million displaced people in Darfur, Sudan, for instance, have been helped in this way.

Act globally

Health care for all is a massive challenge, but an achievable one.

All that’s needed is the will, and the funding.

Governments of developing countries have to invest in their health services. And rich countries, backed by international organisations like the World Bank, must solidly support them.

This is the main focus of our Health and Education campaign.

Affordable medicine

Clinics and hospitals are useless if people can’t afford to pay for medicines.

Yet time and time again, the poorest people find vital drugs are priced out of reach – despite promises from the World Trade Organisation to make medicines affordable and available to all.

We’re campaigning hard to change this, targeting governments and drugs companies – like Pfizer and Novartis – to ensure developing countries get cheaper and better medicines quickly.

HIV and AIDS

More than 40 million people live with HIV and AIDS, and around 8,000 of them die every day as a result – mostly in the world’s poorest countries.

This global killer is fuelled by poverty – and in turn is a major threat to development, devastating family and community efforts to build better lives.

Three-quarters of infected people go without the drug treatments that could help them.

Oxfam is working directly with people affected by HIV and AIDS. In Malawi, for instance, we train and support home-based carers – local volunteers who, with Oxfam supplies, support the ill, elderly and orphaned in their communities.

We lobby for change too.

Our Health and Education campaign presses governments and other donors to provide the $10 billion a year needed for universal HIV and AIDS prevention work, treatment and care.

Learn more

• Health in depth
• Health and Education campaign