United Nations: Occupational health for all workers and the Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage - “Universal Health Coverage: Moving Together to Build a Healthier World”
On April 29-30, the ICOH Secretary-General Prof. Sergio Iavicoli represented ICOH at the United Nations to promote the inclusion of occupational health in the High Level meeting final draft to be adopted by the Heads of State and Government meeting in September.
The draft declaration is now available as approved at https://www.un.org/pga/73/2019/05/17/universal-health-coverage-8/ with ICOH proposals included, see paragraph 29: "Scale up efforts to provide healthier and safer workplaces and access to occupational health services, and to ensure health coverage for all workers, noting that more than 2 million people die every year from preventable occupational diseases and injuries" and paragraph 52: "Protect health workers from all forms of violence, attacks, and discriminatory practices, and to ensure their safe working environment and conditions at all times."
This is a great achievement in line with our efforts of these years to promote universal occupational health coverage for all workers. We will continue to give our support for its final adoption and implementation and we thank those in ICOH and WHO HQ who worked towards this important goal.
