Access to quality healthcare is a basic EU citizen’s right – yet many patients in Europe have no or limited access to proper and timely diagnosis, treatment and information.
To address this burning issue, the European Parliament Interest Group on Access to Healthcare has been set up on 27 January 2015 in order to:
- Ensure the commitment of the EP in raising awareness of patients access issues
- Provide a forum for action and debate on equal access to healthcare to ensure that patients access features on the EU political agenda
- Facilitate the active involvement of EU level policy-makers in these debates and actions.
In cooperation with European Patients’ Forum, the Interest Group was initiated and will be led by Member of the EP Dr. Andrey Kovatchev who has been joined by MEP Co-Chairs Panel: Biljana Borzan, Marian Harkin, Katerina Konecna and Cristian Silviu Busoi.
In his inauguration speech Dr. Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety said: “It goes without saying that I fully support the goals of this Interest Group. For this reason I hope that my priorities will be able to benefit from the political support of this House and through this Interest Group in particular.”
Later on he continued: “My job is to identify key obstacles in access to healthcare for patients and facilitate dialogue between European and national health stakeholders”. There has been a considerable interest from the audience in discussing topics that the group should be covering and the Interest Group leaders in cooperation with interested stakeholders will be looking into formulating working priorities in the coming time.