Press Release: “Building the knowledge economy in the world of blood diseases: patients, professionals and Parliamentarians help make the new Europe.”
On the 30th and 31st of August a conference will be hosted in the European Parliament that will demonstrate the leading role hematology will have in securing the future knowledge economy envisaged in the Europe 2020 Strategy.
Brussels, 29th August 2011
On the 30th & 31st of August a conference will be hosted in the European Parliament that will demonstrate the leading role haematology will have in securing the future knowledge economy envisaged in the Europe 2020 Strategy.
This will be revealed via an exploration of important interlinked legislative dossiers that will eventually realize the Strategy. The dossiers contain many issues which are of concern to both clinicians, their patients and their representatives.
Over the next two days we will explore these issues from a wide range of stakeholder perspectives seeking to set out clearly areas that are both contested and those upon which there is a consensus.
Addressing two of the three legislative dossiers on the conference agenda, the revision of the Common Strategic Framework (CSF) for funding research & innovation and the Clinical Trials Directive, will be their respective Rapporteurs Marisa Matias MEP and Philippe Juvin MEP.
Nessa Childers MEP, a high profile health committee member, will make her own contribution to the discussion of the CSF.
Commission representatives from relevant Directorates will also be present to discuss the dossiers and issues raised concerning them as they will for the Professional Qualifications Directive, the third legislative item to be covered.
This third dossier, in its Single Market policy ambition of the free movement of labour within the European internal market and its contribution to the development of a knowledge economy, need look no further for an illustrative example of its benefits than the Heamatology Curriculum.
Harmonization of continuing medical education by ensuring it be mandatory and enforceable will, when combined with the Curriculum, assist greatly in ensuring the diminution of public concerns about patient safety.
In recognition of Poland’s occupancy of the Presidency Pawel Kowal MEP will open the Conference with a Welcome message followed by Elżbieta Łukacijewska MEP who will talk about haematology and its specialist clinicians.
As Elżbieta will relate; the real mystery is of public ignorance of haematology and the work of haematologists.
This disadvantages the profession and patients who struggle to articulate what haematology is and in what way it is different from its nearest perceived cousin oncology.
However the story they have to tell is a compelling one. It is of forever being at the forefront of medical research both at its most fundamental level where it meets molecular biology and also in the application of that research which often now involves working closely with the biotechnology industries.
There is some public consciousness of stem cells, the huge research effort devoted to revealing their mechanics, and the applicability of the knowledge gained just as there is of imatinib the most spectacularly successful targeted therapy to date.
Yet there is almost zero public recognition of the role played by haematologists in this story. This should, and must change.
Remedial work will commence when a range of speakers reveal the links between these specialities and their rich resulting outputs. This will also serve to illustrate the importance of cross disciplinary coordinated research with academic institutions from across Member States working together to build the future knowledge economy for Europe.
Regulators will also speak of the need to ensure patient safety, the maintenance of assurance and the need for assessment no matter what the context of a patient’s encounter with practices and products they are resourcing to secure a better healthcare outcome.
The support of patients is of vital assistance in discussion of all of these issues since they carry only the self interest of ensuring their survival before them.
The wider public has an instinctive empathy with them because of their awareness that they too might one day joint the ranks of, as one patient put it, “the club that no one wants to join”.
Securing that implicit support and having that transmitted through those “club” members carries weight beyond what can be perceived as the self interest of the professional.
A patient organization & professional association, welded together when jointly organizing events like theses, can send a clear message to regulators, administrators, officials and MEPs that their voice needs to be heard.
For further information please contact:
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Denis Horgan, |
Thom Duyvené de Wit, |
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ECPC Head Office |
EHA Executive Office |
About EHA - European Hematology Association
European Hematology Association is an NGO that promotes excellence in clinical practice, research and education in European haematology. EHA is the representative of haematology and haematologists in Europe (members: 3000+, annual congress attendants: +/-9000 haematologists, Haematologica/The Hematology Journal: the primary general haematology journal in Europe). Further information can be found at http://www.ehaweb.org
About ECPC – The European Cancer Patient Coalition
The European Cancer Patient Coalition was founded in 2003 under the slogan "Nothing About Us, Without Us". It is committed to improving cancer prevention, screening, early diagnosis and best treatment, reducing disparity and inequality across the EU. ECPC seeks to ensure that policy makers, politicians, health professionals, the media and the general public recognise the serious nature of cancer and the need for concerted action to reduce unnecessary death and suffering. Further information can be found at http://www.ecpc-online.org