Newsletter 170

Contents

Action of the Week

Wanted: 6m health workers and teachers

The world needs free public health care and education. The world needs six million more trained teachers and health workers. And to make this happen, the world needs you.

Sign Oxfam's '6 Million More' pledge We want six million people to join the growing global movement demanding health and education for all. We want six million of you to pledge your support :

“I care about people's right to health and education. I am ready to take action, and to call for action from Governments and institutions to ensure quality healthcare and education for all people. Change is possible.”

Click here to sign up.

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National News and Events

Anything Else

Of the Month

Website and News

The website is for YOUR events being held by YOUR branches, projects and campaigns. It is really, really easy to submit events and news, so please do, and let everyone know what wonderful things you are up to! Join in Medsin discussions at http://www.medsin.org/discuss

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National News and Events

Join the water4all team - help urgently needed!

Access to water and sanitation is a crucial issue in global health:

  • 1 billion do not have access to clean water
  • 2 million children die every year due to lack of safe water

Lack of water is a potent fuel for civil wars and conflict The UK government has been complicit in bringing about large increases in privitisation of water supplies internationally World development movement says this has "failed the poor". See their report. Join the campaign for access to water 4 all! we need a group of people to help build the campaign. if you are interested, contact Pete and Jen.

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Medsin Global Health Conference 2008

400+ students, 50+ speakers – one weekend!

The annual, national Medsin Global Health Conference is being held in Oxford on the 29th-30th March (weekend after Easter), so pencil it into your diaries!

Exciting and dynamic lectures, within the plenary themes of:

  1. Tackling HIV/AIDS in Resource-Poor Settings
  2. Disaster Relief and Emerging Epidemics
  3. International Aid – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  4. Mental Health in the Global Community

Also featuring 60+ interactive workshops – with the widest possible choice of themes – to educate and to inspire!

Eminent speakers from America, Africa, WHO, UN and across the UK.

For only £15 (£30 for non-students)! Including two free lunches, and a mini-ball with food at the beautiful Oxford Union! Delegates get free accommodation with the local students!

More details to follow soon – including how to get your ticket – but for now just make sure you keep that weekend free!

Contact Xin-Hui or Joel for more information.

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Global Health Conference Voting Session

This is a call for bylaw changes, policy statements, motions, etc for the GHC2008 voting session. The deadline for submission is midnight on 7th March. Hits and tips on submitting something can be found here.

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Medact News

The climate and health council, which Medact helped to initiate, has a declartion and five action areas which we ask health professionals to support. Support can be organisational (Medact and IPPNW are supporters) and personal. A crucial aspect of the support and one of the action points, is that the global framework which replaces Kyoto must be health promoting, and so both constrain atmospheric CO2 levels at the same time as enabling a transfer of resources to give development headroom to those who have not benefitted from cheap fossil fuels. Contraction and Convergence is the most feasible present option. (Nb - if you were at the Medsin National Conference 2007 in Dundee you'll remember Robin Stott's plenary about this issue) Click here for more information.

Medact are asking you to become a personal supporter by going to the website, agreeing to the declaration and five action points you will find there, and signing on as a supporter, an act which will cost you £10 payable via paypal.

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Homed National Conference

We are hoping to hold the second HOMED national meeting on SATURDAY 2nd FEBRUARY in LEEDS. This will be a whole day event starting late morning.

The agenda will follow shortly, but for now we are trying to guage interest.

The Homed national committee will be present and we hope to give an overview of events of the past year and discuss all the projects. It is a chance for you to get to know what is going on at the national level and how other universities are involved with homelessness and social exclusion. We are also hoping to have a short report on each HOMED, as well as a guest speaker for the afternoon session.

Please could you email back ASAP letting us know if someone from your HOMED branch could attend?

Best wishes. The Homed National Committee

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Teddy Bear Hospital Conference

Nottingham TBH are planning to hold a National TBH conference in 2008. This would be a fantastic opportunity for committee members from all the university TBHs to get together and share ideas. The provisional date for this conference would be Saturday 19th April 2008. We propose to hold the conference as a one day event at the University of Nottingham, ending with a social for those who are interested. We would be able to offer some accommodation in Nottingham at our committee members' houses.

I would be very interested to hear any ideas for the conference. We would like to get an idea of how many people would like to attend the conference. Please could you email us back to show your interest and share your ideas.

Thank you!

Lucasta Dilloway and Shaarna Shan (Nottingham TBH Conference Coordinators)

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Oxfam Campaigns Training Course

Start 2008 by learning how to change the world

Eager to change the world, but need a hand getting started? Then we can help.

Our Community Change course is now open for applications. Here's the link.

Community Change is an all-expenses paid, intensive training programme for people who want to campaign and make an impact in the fight against poverty. The course is open to people of any age, and is run five cities around the country between March and May 2008.

Get on Community Change and we'll help teach you how to campaign for a world free from poverty and injustice.

Details of our Youth Change course, for 18 - 25 year olds, will be available in early 2008.

Thanks and best wishes for 2008,

Oxfam Activist Team

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Free training event for campaigners

Change In Progress are offering campaigning skills workshops in the North East. Choose from 16 inspiring workshops Improve your campaigning skills Meet new people, share challenges and ideas

Saturday 2nd Febuary 2008 10.30am-5.15pm Kings Road Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Change in Progress is an exciting initiative by some of Britain's leading campaigning organisation. We are collaborating to offer a unique day of training, designed to help you:

  • Develop new skills and hone existing ones
  • Meet like-minded activists from other networks and campaigns
  • Share experiences, inspiration and enthusiasm for taking action on the issues you care about

A packed programme will allow you to choose from a range of workshops, more information is available here.

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MSC Motions Submitted

Just to let you know that the final list of motions submitted to the MSC conference on behalf on Medsin are attached to the webpage here. In the end we were able to propose all the motions submitted by the network!

Big thank you to everyone who submitted motions - we were so pleased with the motions. I'll be feeding back after the MSC conference re. the Medsin motions - which got debated and the outcome, etc, but hopefully see some of you there.

Finally, it is unlikely that all of our motions get debated but please don't be disheartened. We can always get some of our motions on the agenda for the Annual Representative's Meeting (which will be held in June), and we had a lot of success with this last year.

Thanks Gemma Owens Medsin President

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Climate change and its impact on health - FREE PLACES!

Tuesday 29 January 2008 Venue: Royal College of Physicians Location: London

We have been given 20 free student places for this conference (which if you were postgrads would give you postgrad training points). The places are quickly being taken up, and we only have 3 left.

First come, first served, so if you'd like to go along, email your full name, email address and name of your university to me

Cheers Sarah, Healthy Planet

More information can be found here.

"From the Earth’s atmosphere, carbon dioxide was drawn down into fossil fuels over some 400 million years. But we have started releasing it again at an alarming rate: the first commercial jet ticket was only sold fifty or so years ago, and we now make over 4 billion passenger flights a year. The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin - half lies within 3 miles of its surface - and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising fast. There is now no serious dispute that this is causing a rapid rise in the Earth’s temperature- and that this brings with it imminent dangers.

So what is the fact, and what the fiction? What are these impacts, both here and abroad? Most importantly what does this mean to the health of peoples and nations? To the survival of individuals and our species? And what - if anything - can we within the medical profession do?

Engaging the energy and enthusiasm of the medical profession is crucial, not least of all because it will be doctors who will be in the front line of coping with policy failure on climate change."

If you can make it, or can persuade your msrc reps, medsoc presidents, etc to come along, email Sarah for a FREE place!

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Stop AIDS Campaign Week of Action (Feb 2nd) and Training and Planning weekend (Feb 15 th)

Hi everyone, Hope you're all rested and fat after a holiday filled with family food and frolics! Just a few Stop AIDS things you need to know about…

World AIDS Day Report: December 1st 2007 was one of the most successful World AIDS Day's in history as far as Medsin's societies and the national campaign were concerned. Up and down the country societies lobbied MPs, painted things red, got 1000's of Action Cards signed (a record number!), and generally had fun while making ourselves heard. See a report and photos from the Parliament event, (where we made a 6m red ribbon of red carnations and got over 70 MPs (another record!) to pledge their support the campaign and promise to pressure the government to do more) here

Week of Action, 2-8th Feb: We need you all to give one final push in our Week of Action for the campaign in order to influence the government's new 3 year AIDS strategy that is set to be finalised this Spring. More info here and email Rafi or Katy to find out what you can do or to order free resources.

Training and Planning weekend, 15th-17th Feb: This is always great fun and a great opportunity to meet others, learn more about the campaign, share ideas, and plan for the year ahead. We want Stop AIDers new, old, novice and veteran to come and enjoy this weekend in the Yorkshire Dales. Listen out for more info and email Katy if you're interested.

As usual email me with anything Stop AIDS related, questions or info etc

Rafi Medsin-UK Stop AIDS Campaign National Coordinator

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Healthy Planet E-Vote

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. To kick off the first e-vote of 2008, Healthy Planet would like to send a letter to the Department of Health, urging action to reduce the environmental footprint of the NHS. You can see the letter in full here

If you are a voting member (branch, project, campaign co-ordinator etc) you should have received an e-mail telling you how to vote. Please get in touch if this is not the case.

The deadline for this vote is 28th January

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Global Health Forum Lectures

The Global Health Forum provides a platform for debating topical global health issues. Broadly, our topics concentrate on public health in the developing world, health within deprived communities in the developed world and issues relating to the ethics of health and healthcare. We run a weekly lecture series in which these important issues are presented by world experts and then questioned and discussed by the audience…you! This is a great opportunity to really explore things not covered in your course but which many of us are deeply interested in. Our talks are accessible to all. No baseline knowledge is needed, just an interest in the reasons underlying the massive discrepancy in public health across the world. All lectures take place at 6.30pm in the Sir Alexander Fleming building in South Kensington and there is free food!

  • January 22nd - NHS Funding of homeopathy
  • February 5th - Millennium Development Goals
  • February 12th - What do you want to do this summer?
  • February 19th - Private Public Partnerships
  • March 14th - Effects of deforestation on drug sources
  • March 11th - Chernobyl/Hiroshima effects and aftermath

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GHC2009 bids

With the Medsin Global Health Conference 2008 nearly upon us, it's time to start thinking about whether your branch could host the GHC2009. The deadline for submission of applications is the 7th March 2008, and applicants will be voted on at the GHC08 in Oxford. All the paperwork (1 whole form!) can be found here, and for more information, please get in touch with the committee.

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Anything Else?

The following aren't officially affilliated with Medsin, but we thought you might be interested.

NGO Forum National Conference

  • FREE Conference on Wednesday 30th January in London, not aimed at students, but at NGOs.

The NGO Forum is holding a national multi-sectoral conference to bring together leading figures from public health to discuss and debate the issues around social determinants of health. This will be your opportunity to learn more about the social factors which can lead to ill health and inequalities. Hear from experts in the UK and internationally about the underlying causes that can lead to health problems. The determinants include unemployment, unsafe workplaces, urban slums, globalization and lack of access to health systems.

You will get an opportunity to network with colleagues from the voluntary sector, health, education, local authorities and other areas and learn from each other about what you can do to help improve the inequalities in England.

For more information, click here

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Greetings from Projects Abroad India!

We wish to introduce ourselves as an organization that specializes exclusively in constructing programmes to suit each individual’s interests and needs in a professional way. Our main job is to organize projects / internships for overseas students who wish to do the same in India. Our diversified specializations in this field not only in offering the projects but also in the choice of locations, is an added advantage in providing a good deal of wholesome knowledge to the students, apart from their concerned projects of interest, also on the culture, traditions, practices, day to day life, history, interests, art, etc. of the people of the part of the country they take up their project in for the short period.

Our team consists of professionals in the respective fields, with over 15 years of experience in organizing and implementing various kinds of projects and tours in India for foreigners, most of who are from Europe and America.

Our current intensive promotion is of medical and nursing internships. These courses are being offered every month in the cultural heart of India. The students can also enjoy two weekend holiday trips and an easy mode of independent transportation in the locality.

We would also be happy to host, in India, one representative from the University in charge of the programme to overview our facilities for this course. Kindly get back to us for any other details and clarifications. (Project Consultants - Mr. Sudhakar +91 94440 21712 & Ms. Priya +91 94449 03003). You can also visit our website, for information on all our services.

Yours faithfully, Israel Seenivasagam Admn. Officer Projects Abroad India

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Of The Month

Defend Primary Healthcare - A GHAP Campaign

GhAP is campaigning to protect access to primary health care by vulnerable migrants -including undocumented migrants, failed asylum seekers and trafficked people.

In 2004 the Department of Health introduced legislation to the effect that groups considered not ‘lawfully resident’ in the UK were no longer entitled to free hospital care or treatment, including anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV.

The Home Office and Department of Health are currently undertaking a joint review of proposals to extend these charging rules to primary care, leaving up to 400,000 of the most vulnerable residents of the UK, many of whom may be destitute, with no access to healthcare whatsoever. The review is expected to report early in the New Year and will be followed by a consultation period. Consequently, it is vital that we continue to lobby over the coming weeks to prevent removal of the right of these individuals to freely access GP and other primary care services. We also want to raise awareness so as to encourage organisations to submit evidence to the new consultation.

The declared intention of the proposal is to reduce abuse of the NHS by “health tourists”. However, there is no evidence to support the suggestion that the individuals concerned come to the UK with the sole purpose of accessing free NHS treatment.

Human rights issues and workability notwithstanding, these changes will impact negatively on public health by reducing uptake of immunisations and delaying detection of communicable diseases. In addition, they do not make economic sense given the cost effectiveness of GP consultations, at approximately £20 per consultation. Emergency services will become overloaded, and there will be an unnecessary administrative burden. It remains unclear who will be responsible for deciding whether patients require ‘immediate and necessary care’, under S1614, for which they are not obliged to pay upfront.

To use denial of healthcare as a lever for immigration is barbaric. GhAP believes that health professionals should not be responsible for policing access to care, especially as evidence has shown that doing so deters people from accessing healthcare services. It is perverse that the British Government advocates for 'Universal access to HIV treatment for all', when they do not provide this access in their own country.

More information can be found in the excellent Medact briefing

What’s new for the campaign?

Since the National Medsin Conference in Dundee, the number of people involved in the campaign has grown tremendously and we now have a Facebook group of over 400. We still want to hear more about involvement at branch level. Early Day Motion 220 has been created by Neil Gerrard MP, which is a step towards a parliamentary debate - so far 48 MPs have signed. A report published in December by the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health ‘Saving Mothers’ Lives’ reported that Black African women, including asylum seekers and newly arrived refugees, have a mortality rate nearly six times higher than White women. This is extremely concerning, as the proposed regulations threaten to prevent access to maternity care, which would exacerbate this existing gross inequality.

On December 11th, a public meeting was held in Parliament. Susan Wright, Director of Medecin du Monde and Dr Angela Burnett, GP, Medact were among the speakers. The meeting was certainly a success with over 100 present. However, after preaching somewhat to the converted, we should aim our lobbying more strongly towards PCTs, MPs and sympathetic groups, and encourage them to submit to the consultation. Campaign exposure in National newspapers including the Guardian Articles here and here.

What can you do?

1) Keep informed by joining the campaign mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/ghap-asylum?hl=en

2) Help collect signatures on a statement of support, which can be found at www.ipetitions.com/petition/access. We need as many students, doctors and other health professionals, friends, family etc to add their names.

3) Write to your MP to raise awareness and ask them to sign EMD 220. If we get over 100 signatures, there’s a much greater chance of a parliament hearing.

4) Help with collecting submissions to the original 2004 consultation to gather evidence in support of the campaign.

5) We need more people to raise awareness at university/branch level by holding events (we can help you with a speaker), contacting local organisations and charities or by writing for student magazines and newspapers.

6) We are planning a public protest for January when the review is expected to report - keep checking the website to stay updated and get involved, suggestions welcome!

7) We are also looking for more media exposure in specific journals of Public Health/A&E/Obs & Gynae –volunteers welcome! Please drop us an email at access@medsin.org if you would like more information.

All details and other ways you can get involved can be found here

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Last updated on Tuesday 22 January 2008 at 19:21.