TEDDY Network is one of the 50th associations from 18 countries signed a Manifesto with 10 Recommendations addressed to European institutions, to remark the unmet needs of non-Covid patients, launched by Active Citizenship Network (ACN) on the occasion of the recent “European Patients’ Rights Day“.
European Union, national and regional institutions, and decision-makers should work together to find concrete solutions that ensure prompt care of COVID-19 positive patients to effectively manage the pandemic, without doing it at the expense of continuity of care for all other patients.
The 10 concrete recommendations to immediately integrate the lessons learned from the pandemics and to be urgently considered to ensure continuity of care for patients suffering from other diseases than COVID-19 are: 1) to monitor COVID-19 impact on non-COVID-19 patients; 2) to urgently secure safe access to diagnostic, immunization, screening and treatments; 3)to secure well-resourced healthcare systems post COVID-19; 4) to support the Digital Healthcare transition; 5) to affirm a life-course approach for chronic diseases prevention; 6) to strengthen a ‘One Health approach’ to prevent future pandemic; 7) to develop a Manifesto for the rights of patients living with multi co-morbidity; 8) “Follow the Money” to monitor together the funds of the Recovery Plan; 9) to engage European citizens to improve the health system; 10) “Health for all EU citizens” must be placed at the heart of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Active Citizenship Network is the European branch of the Italian NGO Cittadinanzattiva which has created a video on the main themes related to the attention non-Covid patients, especially oncological and chronic, deserve. The video was addressed to the political leaders and experts gathered in Rome on the occasion of the Global Health Summit
The full Manifesto is available here.