Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-05-Speech-4-023"
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"en.20030605.1.4-023"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, on her report, which is rich in content and promises very good results, and I know what I am saying because I am head of a breast centre in Italy.
I fully endorse all the calls to the Member States to achieve a rate of voluntary participation in breast screening programmes by women of over 70%, a level which no country has yet reached. I consider to be important the call to promote and disseminate in the Member States technical and care training initiatives and initiatives to provide patients suffering from breast cancer with psychological support, and to promote at Community level training and specialisation courses which – and this is my addition – are underwritten by university institutions, second level Masters degrees. These courses could even be financed out of the training funds.
I can support the call to create European registers on tumours as soon as possible so that reliable, comparable data is, at last, available throughout the European Union on tumour growth in general. It is right to call upon the Member States to use resources from the Structural Funds to fund the creation of infrastructure in the health sector. I fully endorse the rapporteur’s call for health insurance for
aesthetic aids such as bra prostheses, wigs and whatever else a patient needs to restore their appearance as closely as possible to how is was before the illness. In many states, reimbursement is not provided for these aids.
There are, however, a number of points which give cause for concern. I would like to point out first of all that a point is missing from the report produced by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities which is essential if that committee is to be able to claim the title ‘Equal Opportunities’. The rapporteur has made no reference to cancer in men. I regret to say that this type of cancer affects men too: basically, one man per 100 000 people between the ages of 58 and 63 develops breast cancer. I would add that the prognosis for men is more unfavourable than for women precisely because men are not subject to screening and the cancer is diagnosed late.
I wonder whether it would not be appropriate for the committee to grant men at least the same right to information as is accorded to women. Male cancer accounts for 1% of all breast tumours and I realise that its incidence is not economically significant enough to think about providing specific screening. I do, however, believe that an awareness campaign directed at the male population would be appropriate so that men can have the same chance as women of having their lives prolonged and their quality of life increased by early diagnosis. Young men are the most likely to develop breast cancer because of the wide use of female hormones and metabolisers, which spark off gynaecomastia which often goes untreated.
The second point on which I would like to focus concerns item 7(g) of the report in question. I feel that informing patients that they can exercise the right to lodge complaints against doctors for malpractice is unnecessary, in that this right is already laid down in the European Charter of Patients’ Rights, and that it is dangerous, for it could jeopardise the relationship of trust between doctors and patients on which studies and research have shown that half the success of treatment depends. I feel it would make more sense for these kinds of controls on the appropriateness of the quality of treatment to be carried out by dedicated institutions such as, for example, the European board for monitoring centres of excellence – specialist breast units."@en1
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