World Health Day 2023: ‘There Is No Health Without Health And Care Workers,’ Says WHO Director-General

New Delhi: April 7 is marked as World Health Day annually. But this year, April 7 is special for reasons more than one. 75 years ago on this day, the nations of the world created the World Health Organization (WHO); nations for the first time in history formally recognised health as a human right via the WHO constitution; countries committed to Health For All. World Health Day 2023 is marked with the same theme ‘Health For All’, ensuring no one is left behind.

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As per the WHO, 30 per cent of the global population is not able to access essential health services. WHO believes that the right to health is a basic human right. And to achieve ‘Health For All’ everyone must have access to health without facing financial hardship.

“There is no health without health and care workers,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General in a video message. He added,

Health information does not communicate itself. Vaccines do not administer themselves. Wounds do not dress themselves. Caesarean sections do not perform themselves. Diseases do not diagnose themselves. Medicines do not prescribe themselves. And, care, compassion and kindness do not deliver themselves. They all require a person and not just a person, they require a health or care worker.

Also Read: World Health Day 2023: How India Is Reiterating Its Commitments Towards Ensuring ‘Health For All’

On the eve of World Health Day and WHO’s 75th birthday, the organization opened a photograph exhibition that tells the story of WHO and global health around the world, for the last 7.5 decades.

To mark this landmark achievement, Padma Shree awardee and sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik created a sculpture congratulating WHO on 75 years of existence. The sand art features a woman holding the earth with this year’s theme ‘health for all’ written over it. It also shows a stethoscope, an object often associated with the medical profession. In an interview with Banega Swasth India, Mr Pattnaik informed,

The sculpture is 15 feet wide and 6 feet high. It took me five hours to prepare this sculpture, using 12 tonnes of sand.

Sharing the pictures of the sand art, Dr Tedros thanked the artist “for the beautiful piece of art” and for “always standing up for health for all”.

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NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.