VIEW FROM THE SECRETARY-GENERAL


percentage of the budget to be agreed, year after year, to ensure that the health sector grows commensurate with the population.


The fourth and last consideration regarding health policy is health delivery. This ranges from basic health education in schools, maternal education and services, childbirth, mobile health clinics, to specialized and referral medical care. Tremendous efforts and achievements have been made over the past 50 years in all of these areas particularly from the perspective of developing countries. I am delighted to note that former and current Parliamentarians in Commonwealth countries have shared a lot of policy knowledge and information for health delivery.


The training of medical personnel, exchange in medical specialists and


research findings, make the Commonwealth family a health reference force to be reckoned with in the global community. Parliamentarians need to strengthen the spirit of this exchange – for example, the exchange and referral services currently taking place between African and Indian medical practitioners – to improve their national and local health services.


I wish to further suggest that there are two areas that require further investigation and action of Parliamentarians; that is, public complaints against medical personnel and the unprofessional drug distribution. In the area of public complaints, media reports show the existence of a sizeable percentage of unethical doctors, nurses and other attendants who mistreat patients. The complaints seem to affect hospitalized expectant mothers, the elderly,


The Secretary-General’s


The group of participants from the Post-Election Seminar in the Cayman Islands, November 2013.


244 | The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue Four


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124