Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-471"
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"en.20090311.41.3-471"2
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"Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for that response. I am sure you are right, Commissioner, that figures can mean many things and we need to look very carefully at them. But of course, today we are looking at the Court of Auditors, so we have to look at the figures. I sometimes wish we would look at people rather than figures, but we agree ‘no wealth without health’. That is not just a slogan but a reality in so many low-income countries.
We agree that the Court of Auditors says only 5.5% of EDF funding is going to health, whereas the European Union’s policy – and Parliament’s policy – is that 35% should be spent on health and education. There is a wrong figure there, and it may well not be as bad as that figure suggests. Nevertheless, it shows we have got to do a lot better, and that involves cooperation – if I can use that term – with the 15% pledge enshrined in the Abuja Declaration by the countries themselves.
However, Commissioner, I want to come back to the people. Go to Mali and see the diabetes out of control and look at the cost to families: over 30% of their family income spent on insulin, if they have to buy it – and they do have to buy it. Go to Chad and ask about the mental health services, and they will tell you that they used to have them before the civil war. Go anywhere in Africa and see the inhumane treatment of people with epilepsy, whereas for a few cents, we could make most of them seizure-free. Go anywhere in Africa and see the AIDS orphans and see and meet the grandparents trying to raise the grandchildren because the parents are dead.
The statistics are there. We know that in the Americas, 14% of the world’s population has 10% of the global burden of disease and 42% of the health workers. Sub-Saharan Africa has 11% of the world’s population, 25% of the global burden of disease and 3% of the health workers. It reflects the debate that we had earlier. But we have to look at those things because you cannot have health without health services, without health workers and without health education.
We also have to look at some of the projects that we are embarking on. It is not just TB, AIDS and malaria, but all the other diseases. It is the neglected diseases, for which the Commission stands proud with its cooperation with the pharmaceutical companies on that initiative to bring help to people in need of those medicines. We have to look at the causes of ill health, and the debates this evening have centred round those.
Only if we pull all these things together will the statistics add up – and that means the people will add up. What we do better will help people to be better, and then their economies could be better too."@en1
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