Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-361"
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"en.20050607.31.2-361"2
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"I welcome Mr Bovis's report on patient mobility and healthcare developments in the European Union. I support the Commission's action plan for healthcare in Europe, which would genuinely guarantee people's safe freedom of movement.
Particularly at a time when Europe is much troubled by the question of 'European solidarity versus national identity', it is important to demonstrate to citizens that the European institutions are preparing simplified mechanisms and improved healthcare for their citizens. The fact that, on the basis of the principle of Subsidiarity, Member States and their politicians are responsible for providing healthcare is one of the serious obstacles to the free movement of people.
Patients face no waiting list when it comes to paying for health insurance, which they do loyally, promptly and regularly, yet when they urgently need a service in return for their money, healthcare is denied them or delayed. Patient mobility could help to improve the currently inadequate healthcare in some Member States. Effectively, waiting lists cause patient's treatment to be postponed, something that may even, from a medical point of view, might be seen as a threat to their health and their lives. Waiting lists can be for plastic surgery. Patients having to wait for, say, a hip replacement, are ruining their health in the meantime with painkillers, long-term use of which can cause dependence, bone marrow decay and stomach ulcers.
Furthermore, some Member States are at present remedying their healthcare deficiencies to their advantage; I use the word 'advantage' to refer to purchasing the services of cheap labour in the form of doctors and nurses from Eastern Europe. As far as Europe's future is concerned, I therefore consider patient mobility to be far preferable to health worker mobility. When doctors and nurses leave Eastern European States, healthcare suffers there. According to Slovak Medical Association statistics, more doctors left Slovakia than graduated from the country's three medical faculties. It is therefore clear that, in the future, gaps will appear on the map of Europe, a state of affairs that, again, is no solution."@en1
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