Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-356"
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"en.20050607.31.2-356"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too, of course, would like to thank Mr Bowis for his splendid report, which will enable us to counter, yet again, the widespread prejudice according to which Europe does not care about its citizens’ actual worries and needs.
While the public, without a doubt, fear unemployment, they also worry about not always getting the best possible treatment when ill and away from home. Anywhere in Europe, anyone can have an accident, become ill and need medical help and treatment, and so it cannot be acceptable that only two thirds of Member States should have their own legislation on the protection of patients in place. In my own country, for example, 90% of what patients are entitled to is founded upon widely-dispersed case law, none of which is summarised in a single, comprehensive and binding document. It is past high time for current patients’ rights and minimum standards to be brought into line across the EU. Everyone – irrespective of whether it is in Spain, Latvia or Poland that they fall ill – must have the same rights as they do in France, Finland or the Czech Republic, for example the right to expert advice that they can understand, the right to documentation relating to treatment and the right to see their patient records.
What we also need, though, is greater transparency in the reimbursement of costs. Even though the ECJ has shed light on which of the costs incurred abroad are reimbursed, Regulation 1408/71 is still unequally applied. The existing legislation on reimbursement of costs needs to be approximated, and there is an urgent need for a single legal framework on patient mobility. The Internet health portal announced by the Commission also needs to be put in place as soon as possible to carry all the important information that is needed not only by patients and their families, but also by professionals – including such things as data on the fields in which hospitals and doctors specialise, as well as data enabling doctors’ performances to be evaluated and data on patient safety. One might say that what we need is a Europe-wide ranking of the kind that exists here and there at national level. If people are to make sound decisions on where and how they want to be treated, they have to be well informed, and one in every four Europeans already uses the Internet as a source of health information.
Let me conclude by pointing out that we must not limit Centres of Reference to the treatment of rare illnesses; they are also needed to deal with all the other conditions that require a particular combination of resources and expertise, such as cancer, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. In a Europe in which patients are mobile, there will be a need for more legal certainty, transparency and even greater quality. Subsidiarity notwithstanding, this gives us our great opportunity to enable Europe itself to do much, much more for its citizens. Let us follow where Mr Bowis’ report leads in working towards this end."@en1
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