Holy See urges truly human-centered health care

28 June, 2013 - Decrying that every day, 19,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes of death, and that only around half of the world’s HIV and AIDS patients have access to treatment, the Holy See urged the international community to recommit itself to a holistic understanding of the human person and their health care needs. Indian Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Holy See’s Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations in New York, made the statement at a meeting last week on health and populations dynamics. He expressed concern over the UN’s tendency to link health care problems to overpopulation, rather than focusing on serving those who seek access to a wide range of basic health care services. As an example of a truly human-centered path for health care, Archbishop Chullikatt pointed to the Catholic Church, that is one of the largest providers of health care in the world. Globally, the Church runs some 5,400 hospitals, 17,500 dispensaries, 567 leprosaria and 15,700 homes for the elderly or handicapped. These efforts, the Holy See representative said, demonstrate the tangible commitment of the Holy See to promote real access to health care throughout the life-cycle: from the moment of conception until natural death. Archbishop Chullikatt also called on the nations to move beyond the fatal logic of reducing health goals to merely sexual and reproductive health, which, he said, is “a nihilistic defeatism” based on the deliberate and systemic destruction of nascent human life.