FORUM 3
Organised by MSD
Addressing gaps in health equality is on the EU agenda. Indeed, there is a growing acknowledgment of the need to address health inequalities across different key groups.
In particular, discriminated, underserved, marginalised or vulnerable people (i.e. migrants, sex workers, LGBTs, people who inject drugs, prisoners, and the homeless) are at significantly higher risk of poor health and have a substantially greater risk of contracting infectious diseases. Yet at the same time, our healthcare systems are poorly designed to address their specific needs. As a result, they often experience severe inequities in access to care and poorer health outcomes. In short, the groups most in need of care are often the least likely to receive it.
Using a highly interactive format, this session will explore the harsh realities and multiple challenges faced by these key groups owing to the presence of multiple legal, political, economic, social and organisational barriers.
Starting at street level, community representatives and health policy experts will provide snapshots of the reality and challenges faced by these diverse groups to access healthcare. Our discussions will then move to an interactive workshop in which all participants will help identify needs, commonalities and potential policy responses to address these inequities. Finally, we will discuss the potential of an EU-wide policy response to improve equitable access to care and inclusion of underserved people in Europe.
SETTING THE SCENE
Each facilitator will set the scene with a story/descriptive from a particuar point of view about access to healthcare and barriers or the policy environment/system structure which enables or blocks access.
Street narratives
Delivery of care at the community level
Health systems design to promote universal access
WORLD CAFÈ - IDEA INCUBATOR
Two discussions rounds lead by one of the facilitators:
SHARED LEARNINGS
In this part each facilitator will summarise their group's ideas, common threads identified and aim to highlight one key thing they learned which could be shared across groups.
COMMON THREADS & WRAP-UP
Facilitators
ALYNA SMITH, Advocacy Officer, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
ANASTACIA RYAN, Programme Officer, International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE)
GEORGE KALAMITSIS, President of Prometheus, Hellenic Liver Patient Association, Greece
EBERHARD SCHATZ, Project Coordinator, Correlation Network
FREEK SPINNEWIJN, Director, European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA)
ANDREJ KASTELIC, Head of the National Centre for the Treatment of Drug Addiction, Ljubljana, Slovenia
RACHEL HALFORD, Deputy CEO, Hepatitis C Trust, UK
JEFFREY LAZARUS, Professor of International Health Systems, International Health, Immunology & Microbiology Department, University of Copenhagen
Moderators
DENIS ONYANGO, Head of Programmes, African Advocacy Foundation
BORIS AZAIS, Director Public Policy, MSD Europe & Canada
/latest update 12.10. md/