ABSTRACT
On May 1, 2004, union members and staff, health care workers, public health activists, and academics met at 1199 Headquarters in New York City for a conference titled, “Health Care in the Americas: A Right or a Luxury.” Sponsored by the World Organization for the Right of People to Health Care, Inc. (WORPHC), it was attended by people from the Americas and Caribbean and conducted in English, French/Creole, and Spanish. Diverse health care systems were represented—from the prized national health care system in Canada, to the highly privatized and technologically advanced system in the United States, and to struggling public health systems in Guyana, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. Speaker after speaker reported on similar trends: the increasing push toward privatization; the decline in access to health care; the degradation of the health care work environment; the burden on health care workers; and the resistance to these developments mounted by health care workers, their unions, and communities. The message from nurses was particularly clear: poor working conditions related to changes in the health care delivery systems were a serious strain that pushed them toward other work or other countries.
