Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-11-Speech-4-038"
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"en.20040311.3.4-038"2
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"Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by congratulating my fellow MEP, Mrs Jöns, on the value of her work and the quality of her report. It is a very comprehensive report. Her description of the situation, of the problems and of what is at stake is particularly exhaustive, and the rapporteur’s analyses are completely relevant.
We are very pleased, particularly with the fact that the report calls upon the Member States to do away with inequalities in the area of health, especially those linked to socio-economic factors, gender or age. We support the criticism that patients have to bear an ever greater portion of the cost of health care, which penalises people on low incomes. We support the call for a detailed charter of patients’ rights, designed to bring about a high-quality health system in the short, medium and long term, based on solidarity. Like the rapporteur, we request special measures for the new Member States which, for the most part, experience situations more critical than those in the Fifteen. Finally, I am, like the members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, hostile to any further privatisation of health care.
As far as I am concerned, I wish, by way of summary, to say some very simple things. Where health is concerned, it is perhaps necessary, in a number of sectors, to spend better by spending differently. That is something I do not deny. If, however, the desire is to treat and cure serious illnesses that are rapidly becoming more widespread, particularly cancer; to deal much better too with rare, orphan diseases, as they are termed; to confront the needs arising from the ageing of our societies’ populations; to provide better psychological and human support to patients; and to be better at developing all public research, including research into surplus embryonic stem cells, which raises new hopes, particularly in connection with illnesses linked to ageing; then, yes, if the desire is to attain all these objectives, more budgetary resources are needed. It is a need no doubt opposed to other state and European priorities and, above all, to the rigour of the monetary stability criteria.
Finally, I would draw attention to the fact that the poor in our societies, who are too often excluded from care, must never be forgotten. Nor must we forget the poor countries of the world, which do not even have the minimum of health care and whose people, as a consequence, have much shorter life expectancies than ourselves. I shall conclude with a saying that, familiar though its sentiments undoubtedly are, needs constantly to be recalled if it is to be put into practice. If I remember rightly, it is to the effect that quality, not length, of life is what really matters in the end."@en1
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