Press Advisory :: For Immediate Release :: 17 April 2006

Contact: Hope Chu, 50 Years Is Enough Network: +1 202 463 2265/+1 303 667 6613
Morrigan Phillips, Mobilization for Global Justice: +1 202 258 1822

IMF/WORLD BANK FAIL HEALTH INSPECTION, SLATED FOR CLOSURE

People’s Department of Health declares IMF/World Bank hazardous to public health

Attention Photo Editors and Photographers: Activists will stage a theatrical event on Friday, 21 April 2006, at noon in front of IMF headquarters, H and 19th Sts NW, Washington DC.

Who: People’s Department of Health
What: Delivery of failing health report to the IMF/World Bank
Where: IMF headquarters, H and 19th Sts NW, Washington DC
When: Friday, 21 April 2006, Noon

WASHINGTON – Next Friday, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank hold their annual spring meetings, health inspectors from the People’s Department of Health will present the institutions with an order to close. Citing numerous serious violations, including the promotion of policies that have devastated the quality, availability, and accessibility of health care in impoverished countries around the world, health department inspectors have declared the IMF and World Bank a public health hazard.

The health inspectors point to the institutions’ tunnel vision approach to economic policy as a primary culprit. A main concern is the IMF’s insistence on keeping inflation rates low which routinely requires countries to limit public spending – including spending on healthcare – regardless of the needs of the country. Such policies led to healthcare spending in Sub-Saharan Africa, at the center of the HIV/AIDS crisis, dropping from an already low $17 per person/year in 1997 to a dismal $12 per person/year in 2001. The People’s Department of Health also underscores IMF/World Bank-mandated health care privatization and impoverished countries’ foreign debt burden as exacerbating health care crises around the world.

People’s Department of Health Inspection Team: 50 Years Is Enough Network, Africa Action, Jubilee USA Network, Mobilization for Global Justice, and Stop HIV/AIDS in India Initiative.

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