Health systems in the world's countries... Why are they in decline?!

In the other half of the globe, a long time passed before rational forces took action in solidarity with labor unions in Canada and similar movements in Australia and New Zealand to break away from American hegemony and the constraints of the capitalist system and its major tools—such as banks, which have among their objectives nothing related to health, mercy, and the alleviation of human pain and suffering—in order to establish their generous health insurance. Its enemies found nothing to object to except feigned sympathy for patients over long waiting lists, which is a purely administrative problem with easy solutions other than corruption, nepotism, or depriving the poor of their right to obtain health services under that pretext!

As for the major milestone—which I consider with absolute confidence and belief to be the true opportunity for humanity in our current era—we witnessed its dawn with the birth of the United Nations Charter in 1946 and the affirmation of the right to health through the establishment of the World Health Organization in 1948 to set principles for healthcare that are suitable for all peoples and can be applied at the lowest possible cost and with the simplest available means. This organization crowned its efforts in 1978 by holding a meeting of the World Health Assembly, which included as members the ministers of health legally responsible for all health affairs in the world's governments, in Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union. That historic document was signed, and the race began to achieve its grand slogan: "Health for All by the Year 2000." Hope inspired many countries, including our poor country, which in the preceding few decades had achieved remarkable successes in primary care fields, such as eradicating the endemic malaria epidemic in the early 1970s and smallpox, alongside all the peoples of the earth in 1978. Here, we also recall the courageous role played by epidemiological surveillance teams, which we found ready and on high alert during the 2021 coronavirus pandemic, as well as the fight against fatal childhood diseases such as smallpox, measles, polio, and diphtheria (croup) through an ongoing, uninterrupted national vaccination program until some of them nearly disappeared. Examples include students receiving free prescription glasses through school health services, and the establishment of the first national audiology center where those in need obtained semi-free hearing aids. As for the final milestone, the opportunity loomed for us to present to the world the culmination of the Jordanian experience when I was elected in 1986 as the representative of the Eastern Mediterranean Region to serve as President of the World Health Organization in Geneva, working within the ranks of the international organization, and from which I learned a great deal about it and the various countries of the world. Prior to that, enthusiasm had begun among us to build primary centers, and then complete them to serve the patient referral system by establishing secondary "comprehensive" centers linked to hospitals in tight, integrated chains governed by sincere cooperation, until the Therapeutic Medicine Corporation was imposed in our land by temporary law in 1987. With it began the serial decline, the dismantling of long-standing, well-established health institutions, and the paving of the way for privatization by surrendering to insurance companies, just as in the United States and as Margaret Thatcher began doing in Britain while harassing its National Health Service under pretexts and excuses, alongside the assault by America and the Big Club on the World Health Organization, insultingly accusing it of being a failure and unfit for them, but rather suited for poor countries!

In many countries, including Jordan, the basic integrated departments leading the health system—represented by the Ministry of Health—began to be gradually detached from it, such as the Higher Health Council, the Higher Population Council, the Department for Combating Epidemics and Infectious Diseases, Diabetes, Cancer Treatment, and the Food and Drug Administration!

And yet, a time came upon humanity when it feared to speak of its right to health, for it was either viewed as a favor from the rich to the poor, or as a commodity for which they had to pay no matter how exorbitant the price, and it mattered not if depriving them of it led to their misery or death.

Nowadays, America is stepping up its campaigns against the international institution, especially in the health field, seeking to replace it with institutions affiliated with it, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund—which, for those who do not yet know, are two major financial institutions funded by governments and banks, with the American government at the fore!