Medical science has advanced, and for most diseases, we either know how to cure or manage them. Overall, the focus is on providing the treatment. However, we have still not addressed the increasing burden of diseases. More funding or more healthcare coverage has not resulted in better health outcomes because the world has yet to focus on the ‘basics’ of health.
‘Health Communication’ remains one of the biggest challenges across communities and countries. To address this challenge, Health Parliament proposes the ‘World Health Communication Week’ to bring the focus back to basics. We have a doctor’s day, nurses’ day, and several days focusing on diseases, etc. (https://www.who.int/campaigns), but healthcare communication has no day dedicated to it, and without addressing the communication (interaction between the care seeker and care provider), we cannot deliver appropriate healthcare interventions. The Health Parliament invites global stakeholders to celebrate World Health Communication Week in the 1st week of April, concluding with World Health Day (7th April). We should use this opportunity to focus on all aspects of healthcare-related communication and conduct programs and campaigns to address the fundamental issues of ‘interaction’ and ‘information’ for communicating about healthcare.
We hope this global campaign will save millions of lives every year.