Brussels, 23/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 17 May, at a seminar organised by the European Parliament, a number of MEPs, experts and public health organisations expressed their concerns about increasingly restricted access to medicines. They deplored the consequences of the current austerity policies in European countries that are having a disastrous effect on health systems. Spanish Socialist, Alejandro Cercas, argued: “European governments are using the current economic crisis to cut public spending across the board; decades of social justice are being swept away in a matter of a few years”. The seminar was organised on the initiative of the S&D and was chaired by Cercas. Six MEPs from different political groups took part.
Cercas asserted that healthcare policies should be at the very bottom of the list of sectors to be made subject to austerity. MEP Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (EPP, Portugal) proposed that research be supported in order to mitigate the shortage of medicines and make them more efficient. She argued that “research and innovation will make the production of medicines increasingly sustainable and affordable”, bringing prices down and helping those who cannot afford to be treated effectively. Antonyia Parvanova (ALDE, Bulgaria), said the European Parliament is becoming “a battlefield” where public interests and big pharmaceutical companies meet and clash and stated that, “as the Parliament is debating three key directives related to public health - clinical trials, medical devices and price transparency - EU policy-makers must show that they are on the side of the people by putting their interests ahead of the industry's profits”. MEPs Nikos Chrysogelos (Greens/EFA, Greece), Marian Harkin (ALDE, Ireland) and Minodora Cliveti (S&D, Romania) highlighted the malfunctions still occurring in their respective countries. Greece still has an unequal system, Ireland has very high prices for many medicines and Romania has reduced healthcare access by closing around 60 hospitals. Three factors determine whether or not a person obtains the medicine he/she needs; access, affordability and availability. Seminar participants stated that medicines are becoming increasingly less accessible at a time when Europe's population is ageing and non-communicable diseases are on the rise. Professor Joan Rovira denounced the measures implemented by the Spanish government, which, on the pretext of as fiscal discipline, has shifted the universal health system to a model that is linked to employment and consequently excludes disadvantaged groups such as less well educated immigrants. He warned that this was opening the door to the transmission of infectious diseases, such as AIDS, which ultimately would see costs rise hugely. (IL/transl.fl)