State Responsibility Towards the Right to Health in the Age of Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210506.003How to use a DOI?

Keywords

state responsibility, right to health, covid-19, pandemic

Abstract

The right to health is universally recognized through Article 25 paragraph (1) of Universal Declaration of Human Rights saying that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Every country in the world including Indonesia that becomes a party to human rights treaty has addressed health-related rights including the right to health and a number of rights related to conditions necessary for health. Right to health encompasses all socio-economic, environmental and legal issues that have any direct implication on health. Therefore, the steps to be taken by the states parties shall include prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases. Under this framework, the state has duties to ensure the rights of its citizens to enjoy healthy life. In this matter, the state is duty-bound legally to provide basic minimum rights for securing health, including easily accessible and affordable good quality health care for all. Since Indonesian government had declared corona virus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as a national disaster on 2nd March 2020, every facet of society has changed dramatically. Consequently, Indonesian citizens feel threatened by the virus. Then, late response from the government has made them vulnerable to the pandemic. It was not until 13th March 2020 the Indonesian government reacted to the crisis by setting up the Task Force for Rapid Response to Covid-19 under Presidential Decree Number 9 year 2020. By then, the spread of corona virus becomes a core concern for Indonesian Government. Indonesian Task Force for Rapid Response to Covid-19 announced that as of 25th October 2020 there were 389,712 people were infected by Corona virus. Among them 313,764 people were recovered (80.51%) and 13,299 people died (3.41%) and 62,649 people were hospitalized (16.07%). These data have made Indonesia as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. The increase in death cases in Indonesia should be a worrying sign for Indonesian Government and now the government is entering a situation of being alert to the spread of this corona virus. In anticipating this situation Indonesian Government has implemented several recommendations for the prevention of this virus outbreak centrally through the health protocol. Society is obliged to apply social distance, self-isolation, clean living behaviors, and healthy living with nutritious food consumption. In short, the government must take a full role in providing alternatives as the way out to ensure the right to health for all citizens. Drawing on the above description, this paper scrutinizes the state responsibility in terms of providing health care for all citizens as human rights during Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Azhari Yahya
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/05/08
TI  - State Responsibility Towards the Right to Health in the Age of Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Law and Human Rights 2020 (ICLHR 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 10
EP  - 17
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210506.003
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210506.003
ID  - Yahya2021
ER  -