Health justice: An argument from the capabilities approach

摘要

Health Justice is able to compile and create linkages between various notions of health that help us understand the problem of ill-health and to locate it within the framework of social justice. Health justice is argued as important for the individual to exercise any of his/her other human rights and capabilities. People can demand and use their other rights completely only if they are healthy. Venkatapuram's argument is that violation of health justice can be viewed as the reason for the failure to provide justice in cases like female foeticide in India and China, the delay in recognising HIV/AIDS as an epidemic in the USA, grotesque treatment of orphans in Romania, and street killing of destitute children in Rio de Janeiro. This conceptualisation of the relationship between social justice and health is Venkatapuram's major contribution. In this framework, the idea of equal human dignity necessitates protecting the health needs of the individual irrespective of his/her background and location.