A right to health for the people of Scotland

Abstract

It is fundamentally unjust that systematic inequalities in Scotland today mean that some people live healthier, longer lives than many others. This is not just a concern for those most unfairly impacted: while declining deaths from alcohol, heart disease, most cancers and respiratory disease are encouraging, Scotland’s population as a whole remains, in European terms, comparatively sick. This can only change if there is a fundamental transformation in how we view health and how we understand its underlying causes. It is not about individual lifestyle choices; it is about structural change. We need our government in Scotland to commit to establishing a right to health for all. As a first step we need to foster a debate about exactly what a ‘right to health’ entails and then work together to address underlying social, economic, political and commercial determinants of health to address real change in the nation’s health. A peoples’ movement with a committed government can do just that. And it can make Scotland healthier.