We believe that healthcare inequities are intertwined with other forms of social and economic marginalization and exclusion. As such, they need to be confronted politically.
Social Clinics operate autonomously and are self-managed. Our goal is to challenge conventional organizational structures through innovative practices that encompass everyday interactions, processes, and medical procedures. We firmly believe in people’s capacity to organize, self-govern, and collectively make fair and egalitarian decisions concerning their work, health, and lives. Social Clinics serve as a radical political model, offering a vision of a more equitable, just, consistent, and anti-authoritarian societal structure that can extend beyond healthcare to various domains. If it can be successfully implemented in healthcare, it can be applied anywhere.
Healthcare systems have undergone significant dismantling due to cuts in public spending, resulting in discriminatory and exclusionary practices. Social Clinics actively address the obstacles individuals face, such as bureaucratic, economic, and language-related challenges when seeking access to healthcare. This form of political action can manifest in confrontational approaches and is driven by the goal of securing universal access and the right to health for all.
We felt the need to establish spaces where hierarchies and power dynamics in healthcare and medical practices could be challenged and questioned. We champion a radical and collective vision of healthcare, where everyone who enters our clinic is treated equally, regardless of their status, professional background or qualifications. Our assemblies underscore our commitment to dismantling all forms of hierarchy, fostering an environment for discussion and critique. In our daily roles and routines, we often lack the time and space to collectively contemplate our health and how we care for ourselves and others. Social clinics provide precisely that time and space. Our Manifesto embodies the outcomes of our collective discussions and reflections, encapsulating our dreams and aspirations.
