Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-440"
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"en.20090311.39.3-440"2
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"Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner, both for giving up her evening to come and join us in this packed House, but also for bringing the message that she has brought. It is an important Green Paper and it should start a major discussion within this Parliament and beyond.
She raised one or two questions during her submission just now, including her question about why more nurses and doctors are not coming forward. If I may say so, I think that is half the question. The other half is why so many are leaving. The key to this will be to find ways of recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals. That goes particularly, perhaps, for nurses, but also for doctors and for other therapists and so on. I think we have to look at the career structures that we provide. We have to see how promotion is seen as a potential. We have to cut down some of the barriers within and between the professions. We have to ensure that the work environment is pleasant. It is going to be tough but it can be comfortable as well. We have to make sure that research facilities are available in Europe so we do not lose people abroad. Perhaps, above all, we have to listen to the sharp-end professionals. Too often – I know from when I have been in government and you know as a Commissioner – we listen to the top people and we do not go down to the beds and listen to the nurses and the doctors who are actually dealing on the ground. If we did more of that, then perhaps we would get more of our policy right.
I, of course, want to refer – as the Commissioner has referred – to my report, the Parliament’s consideration of cross-border health. We said right from the beginning that important with that were the two measures that were not coming at the same time. One of them, of course, was patient safety and we do have a measure that has sped its way on the fast track to join us. This one is somewhat behind. It concerns the health professionals. We do need to have the health professionals providing that service – that back-up – to cross-border health to enable patients to move safely and with confidence. Indeed, standing here in Strasbourg, we think of the Strasbourg, Liège, Luxembourg example of where the reference network concept may be of great value in terms of both patients and training and research.
The Commissioner has referred to the movement of health professionals, and we need to look at ways of making that a reality without endangering patient safety. I think that certainly includes the issue of language tests, which are not an obstacle but must be a protective measure for patients. She has referred to the recognition of qualifications. That clearly is important, whether you are treated at home by an incoming doctor, or you are going abroad to meet a local doctor there. There are some professions – and chiropractice is one – where you have recognition in some countries and not in others. We need to look at ways of bringing those ancillary health professionals into the centre of our planning.
We also, of course, need to be sure we have patient safety in terms of doctors who are disciplined or struck off – doctors, nurses, any health professionals – and in my report, I call for this to be facilitated by the Commission. I think that is something we need to look at more.
The Commissioner rightly referred to the brain drain. It is tragic that we are not providing enough health professionals but go and grab them from the countries that can least afford it. If you look at the figures, we see, on average, 1 in 4 doctors and 1 nurse in 20 has trained in Africa and is working in OECD countries. It is partly that we as countries pinch them and it is partly our NGOs who also use them and recruit them in the country concerned, pay them more than they would be paid in their own countries. Therefore, they do not go back to work there.
All those things are important, Commissioner. We need to look at the safety of health professionals. We need to put needle-stick injuries and hospital acquired infections on our agenda, as well as assaults on staff. We know from talking to midwives recently about the difficulty of getting professional indemnity insurance. Those are some of the issues that I hope will be to the forefront in our discussions on this very welcome Green Paper."@en1
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