Access to health information is a human right. Health itself is a human right. Access to information is embedded in access to health services. My worry is that adding more to human rights will undermine its values. In the Universal Declaration of Humm Rights “access to information is human right”. The most unfortunate thing in that Declaration is that it does not talk about “scientific information”. It talks about access to information for journalists. The health debate continues.
With kind regards.
Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, PhD, IAHSI
HIFA profile: Najeeb Al-Shorbaji recently retired from the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked since 1988 in different capacities. He was most recently Director of the Knowledge, Ethics and Research Department at WHO headquarters, Geneva. Previously he was Coordinator for Knowledge Management and Sharing in EMRO (Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office), Egypt. He is a member of a number of national and international professional societies and associations specialised in information management and health informatics. He has authored over 100 research papers and articles presented in various conferences and published in professional journals. He is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA Working Group on Multilingualism. http://www.hifa.org/support/members/najeeb http://www.hifa.org/projects/multilingualism Email: shorbajin AT gmail.com
