The right to health in indigenous communities in the State of Chiapas

Abstract

Public health policies and the effective fulfillment on the part of the State of the right to health are analyzed from the human rights perspective with respect to the current health conditions and access to health services of the native peoples in the High Plains, North, and Forest (Altos, Norte, and Selva) regions of the state of Chiapas. In the context of the fading State and the meager results of public health policies, the indigenous peoples in their attempts to access health services are faced with subordination and discrimination, conditioned by their cultural, linguistic or political identity. This work demonstrates the grave health situation lived today by the indigenous peoples in the context of an increasingly deficient and ineffective health system. The possibilities of existence of mechanisms to make the right to health demandable and legally enforceable by the population and the State are discussed, as well as the demands and alternatives heard from the indigenous peoples, in particular in relation to health, in which the fundamental rights, in order to be effective, must acquire a more operational meaning for people. The challenge is political.