Access to healthcare is supposedly a right to all humans, but we are well aware of the fragility of that claim and the different injustices we face in our quest for free, accessible health. Not only that, but the pandemic has exposed the flaws of privatized health sectors, and the reality of underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated workers in that domain. In Lebanon and other countries around the world, economic crises have exacerbated the economic, mental and physical costs of relying on a medical system that is both unsustainable and inadequate.

We, as women*, trans* persons, and gender-non conforming people, coming from different racial, citizenship, ability,  and class backgrounds, have our own share of experiences and reflections on a system that has always proved to be unjust, discriminatory, and harsh.

This is why we extended this call to write on what we know, think and live through health injustices. The call is open and wide. There is so much to write about and fit in under this slogan of the right to healthcare. It is a conversation we need to popularize, and a demand we need to integrate into our social movements and political organizing. Free, accessible healthcare for all, where our lives are not dispensable because of who we are, and where we are not told we should be grateful for the crumbs of services that come with violent and patriarchal encounters with our doctor, therapist and pharmacist.
 

The call is open for any writings under that theme, and these are a few recommendations that may inspire you:

• What lessons have we learned from covid-19 and the response of different healthcare systems
• Experiences as patients: how healthcare providers see us as genders, races and classes
• Medicalizing the trans* body and mind
• Nurses at the front line: indispensable yet undercompensated
• Disabled, sexual, and uncared for medically
• When our pain is undermined, and our stories are not believed
• Navigating medication in crises: relying on drugs, surviving shortages
• Living with chronic illness
• The burden of care work in the absence of community care
• Doctor archetypes, or the many faces of medical patriarchy
• Imagining the clinic: what needs to be radically changed about healthcare

We also welcome comics, zines and memes! Please take a look at our different blog contribution guidelines here.