Everyone has the Right to be Taken Care of.

This just in, from ZENIT, the Vatican news feed:

Vatican Calls for Rich to Make Universal Health Care Possible

Laments That "Poor People Miss Out"

GENEVA, Switzerland, MAY 24, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry says rich nations will have to show solidarity with poor countries if the right to health care is to become a reality.

Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski said this in his address to the World Health Organization's 64th World Health Assembly, which concluded today in Geneva.

The prelate noted the 2010 World Health Report, showing "on the whole, we are still a long way from universal coverage."

"We are stalled in the status quo, where the rich people have higher levels of coverage, while most of the poor people miss out, and those who do have access often incur high, sometimes catastrophic costs in paying for services and medicine," he said.

The prelate stated that to make universal coverage a possibility, nations need to raise funds, "reduce reliance on direct payments for services and improve efficiency and equity, thus removing the financial barriers to access, especially for poor and less advantaged people."

But he said that low-income countries have little chance of making this happen.

"This sad fact highlights the need for a true global solidarity, in which high income countries do not only promise, but effectively meet their commitments on development assistance," he said.


We are all our brother's keeper.


h/t: Caelum & Terra

(I should also note that Caelum & Terra has been knocking ball after ball out of the park lately. I admire Daniel Nichols immensely, and he's been posting many interesting and great things lately - like these words from St. Seraphim of Sarov yesterday for example:

God is fire which warms and inflames the heart and womb. And so, if we feel in our hearts coldness, which is from the devil, for he is cold, then let us pray to the Lord for he came to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only of him but of our neighbor too. And in the face of his warmth the cold of the hater-of-good will flee away.

How's that for some excellent advice? Pray for perfect love. What ever else were we made for but that? )



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