Tag: healthcare

As they make cuts to their budgets to address the recession, EU ministers are failing to recognise that efficient healthcare systems drive greater prosperity, says EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.

One of the global financial crisis' consequences has been the lack of access to treatment for millions of Europeans. According to health promoters, alternative solutions to the problem may be the way forward.

Austerity measures adopted in Europe in response to the public debt crisis have a devastating impact on healthcare services, resulting in rising xenophobia in countries like Greece and Spain, the humanitarian group Doctors of the World said Tuesday (9 April).

The full effects of a decline in public health spending in Europe are still not visible, public health experts say following a report showing that European public health spending is falling for the first time since the 1970s.

Some Spanish doctors and regions say they will defy a ban on free healthcare for an estimated 150,000 undocumented immigrants, imposed by the central government as part of spending cuts to avoid an international bailout.

Draft EU legislation seeks to bring services under the European standardisation system, with a view to improving their free movement in the single market. Yet in the case of healthcare, such standardisation threatens patient safety, says Dr Konstanty Radziwill.

Europe’s debt crisis is hitting health budgets, leading to unpaid bills for pharmaceutical products, warns the head of Europe's pharma industry association, EFPIA, in an interview with EurActiv. According to Richard Bergström, the industry is near breaking point and the issue needs to be discussed at the highest policy making levels.

Government efforts to enact a controversial healthcare bill sparked protests, some violent, that mushroomed into demonstrations of broader discontent over the economy and national leadership.

Countries with paritarian welfare institutions - those in which pensions, health care and other social protection schemes are negotiated equally between employers and social partners - were significantly better able to cope with the financial and economic crises, Francesco Briganti of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection (AEIP) told EurActiv.hu in an interview.

"Today health is people's main concern, but health systems must face up to four challenges: pragmatism, transversability, accountability and sustainability. The future of our health depends on this," writes Orlando Monteiro da Silva, president-elect of the World Dental Federation, in an exclusive op-ed for EurActiv.

The incoming Hungarian EU Presidency will try to encourage healthcare "tourism" in Europe as the EU tries to push through new legislation to facilitate cross-border treatment.

The EU must act to reduce the crippling economic burden of musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs), accounting for almost half of all work absences and costing the bloc €240 billion each year, warned an alliance of politicians, doctors and experts in Brussels yesterday (30 September).

European cancer patients continue to suffer from a lack of access to quality information and are often lured by untrustworthy sources such as counterfeit online pharmacies. The EU must urgently establish a coherent and comprehensive strategy to allow patients to make informed choices, writes Jan Geissler, director of the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC), in an April blog post.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a vital component for the delivery of modern health care and ICT tools can play a key role in making patient care more efficient and streamlined, according to a March report by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

"Patient involvement in health-related EU projects is fundamental to patient-centred, equitable healthcare throughout the EU. 'Meaningful patient involvement' means putting the patient at the centre of healthcare policy so that their specific knowledge and experience can feed into the decision-making process," writes Nicola Bedlington, director of the European Patients' Forum, in an exclusive commentary for EurActiv.

Computer modelling could be the key to solving major diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer's, according to the European Commission.

"Great benefits can be made by opening health sectors to trade and investment integration, but very few countries have undertaken such reforms," write Lucy Davis and Fredrik Erixon in a policy brief for the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE).

The European Commission is promoting hi-tech solutions to prevent chronic diseases and meet the health challenges of the 21st century. 

Tackling health threats such as avian flu and ensuring safe, efficient and equitable access to cross-border healtcare will be top priorities of the EU public health policy agenda in the years to come, predicted the Commission's public health director Andrzej Ryś in an interview with EurActiv. 

Being particularly vulnerable, the elderly are "often ignored and denied their full human rights," according to the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg, writing on the council's website on 28 April 2008.

Healthcare systems around the world will become unsustainable by 2015, unless governments adopt new accountability standards on how the money is being spent, argues an IBM report, echoing earlier calls for more transparency in public health funding.

Establishing electronic health records and connecting the information with hospital and remote environments such as the physician's office and private homes should be the top priorities for improving the quality of healthcare over the next two years, according to senior healthcare professionals.

The differences between the different European health care systems justify the mobilisation of stakeholders at EU level for obvious political and moral reasons, writes Arnaud Senn for the Robert Schuman Foundation.