Brussels, 07/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - World Health Day was celebrated in a rather particular way in the streets of Brussels: two very different hospitals - one for the rich and one for the poor - were temporarily set up between the Council and the European Commission on Thursday 7 April. Demonstrators subsequently denounced the commercialisation and privatisation of health and social protection.
Five different organisations were behind this event: European Public Service Union (EPSU), European Network Against Privatisation and Commercialisation of Health and Social Protection, People's Health Movement in Europe, Alter Summit and the Belgian Plate-forme d'action Santé & Solidarité.
Sebastian Franco, coordinator of the European Network Against the Commercialisation of Health, explained that "In every country, we face the same threat: the boundless appetite of large enterprises which view the health sector as an opportunity to make them lots of money. These enterprises are unfortunately pushed by various governments and European institutions that have for decades built a European health market in which competition and competitiveness are becoming more important than access to health for all". Yves Hellendorff, the Secretary General of the Belgian workers' Centrale nationale des employés (non-commercial sector) warned "Our solidarity-based non-commercial system is currently being undermined. There is a risk that we will end up with a two tier US style system, with one for the rich and one for the poor".
He highlighted four different trends: countries in southern Europe have privatised a system that was working well in an effort to respond to European orthodoxy; countries in Central and Eastern Europe have shifted from state funding to developing the private sector; Western European countries (with the exception of the United Kingdom where the national health system is being undermined) are moving towards a reduction in subscriptions, which is expected to create problems in funding services and increasing the threat posed by the private sector. He believes that in Scandinavia, the system is doing more or less well for the time being, despite calls for privatisation. He points out that the problem is "the fact that private operators tend to cherry pick patients and pathologies. In France, 40% of hospitals have been transformed into private and more elitist clinics". He also pointed out that a manifesto on privatisation and commercialisation of healthcare and social protection had already been presented to the Barroso II Commission in 2014 but that "Unfortunately, this initiative lacked any practical follow-up and Commissioners Borg and Andor informed us that healthcare was a matter for the member states alone".
Thursday's event is taking place at several different levels: it opened with a conference on the commercialisation of health care in Europe and finished with a rally at the Schuman roundabout. Several activists from the People's Health Movement provided examples of the situation in different countries: Feride Aksu for example, referred to the increased child mortality rate in Turkey; Elias Kondilis highlighted the reduction in life expectancy in Greece; and Jan Schriefer alluded to the increasing number of private clinics in the Netherlands. During the conference, the organisers set up a website for monitoring this phenomenon (http://www.health-is-not-for-sale.org/?lang=fr ). Mathias Maucher said that "This website is a tool for analysis and action for tackling the privatisation mechanism". The latter is in charge of social and health policies at the
EPSU. In practice, grassroots organisations are being called on to sound the alarm as soon as changes occur on their respective territories (for example, the privatisation of undertakings and a fall in the number of services covered by health care systems). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)