Vic Launch Report

PHM Victoria was launched in Melbourne on the evening of Thursday 24th March. David Legge, the regional representative for the Australia/Pacific region on the Global Steering Committee of the People's Health Movement, gave an introduction to PHM.

Brain Drain and Third World Health

Sally Kingsland spoke about the health 'brain drain' - the net migration of health professionals from developing to developed countries. The World Health Organization has identified brain drain as a key issue in health systems in developing countries. PHM groups within Australia are in a good position to advocate on this issue, as it is an area where local health policy can directly impact on health in developing countries. The Productivity Commission has commenced a study into health workforce in Australia and is due to release an issue paper in May 2005. The PHM group in Victoria plans to form a working group of interested people to write a submission to this enquiry and look for other ways to highlight the issue.

Community Health Links Project

Deb Gleeson spoke about the Community Health Links Project, still in its early stages, which aims to forge links between primary health care organizations in Australia and developing countries. There has already been a positive response from the community health centre sector in Melbourne to this idea. There has also been interest from organisations from Iran and Cameroon in developing a relationship with an Australian primary health care organization. This project could provide an accessible way for Australian primary health practitioners to understand the problems of primary health care in poor countries whilst providing tangible support to organizations in developing countries

PHM India

Jonathon Ehsani gave a short presentation showing slides and talking about his recent experiences with PHM India. Jon spoke about two programs that are affiliated with PHM India in particular, the first being the Jamkhed Comprehensive Primary Health Project which he visited as a student for three weeks. The second program was a Christian aid project in the North East of India. Jon's presentation gave the audience a feel for what PHM is doing in a developing country, and highlighted issues regarding the typically secular Western approach to health and development in the context of the majority world where faith is an integral factor in most service provision.

International People's Health University

David Legge spoke about the International Peoples Health University (IPHU). The IPHU aims to give activists from largely third world communities a chance to learn from academics from around the world about the political economy of health and advocacy whilst building networks and solidarity. The first IPHU will be held before the second People's Health Assembly in Ecuador this July.

Discussion

Although there was a lot of information to digest quickly, some good discussion about the possible direction and activities of PHM Oz arose. Some of the ideas that were raised included:

• What do people from developing countries want us to be doing in Australia? We need to work out how we can contribute to the larger movement.
• Is our role advocacy on international issues, or implementation in applying PHM principles to Australian problems? We reached general agreement that it is both.
• How could PHM work with Australian NGOs to promote a primary health care approach?
• Changing our culture - people are locked into materialism; how can we challenge this?
• The need to do something about Aboriginal health in Australia as well as focusing overseas was recognised.
• As we are an information rich country, information resources are one way we can help the poor world.