Billye Avery tells students, “Health care is a human right.”
Billye Avery, founder of the women’s health care movement and president of the Avery Institute for Social Change, spoke to more than 60 Suffolk students and faculty members on Thursday, Feb. 21 as part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholars lecture series.
“Know that your health is the most important thing that you have,” she said passionately, earrings swinging in emphasis above her purple turtleneck and jewel-colored blouse. “It is really one of the only things you own.”
Her dedication to sharing this belief with African American women led to her work as a health care reform activist in the ’70s, starting the National Black Women’s Health Project, which turns 25 this June. Over the past three decades, her work has grown into a national health care reform movement, improving access to health records, raising awareness of racial disparities in the health care system, joining women’s voices to obtain the health care they need, and emphasizing prevention and primary care as the vision for the future.
“We have a sick-care system,” she said, “not a health care system.”
