During its meeting of 15 March 2005, the European Parliament’s Committee for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety discussed the draft report on patient mobility submitted by John Bowis (EPP, UK).
In his introductory statement, John Bowis stated that access to high-quality and timely health services is a fundamental right of every patient. In case when such services are not available in the home country, a patient should be allowed to receive treatment abroad and be reimbursed for it by his country of origin.
So far patient mobility has been driven in a piecemeal fashion by the rulings of the European Court of Justice. In the view of the rapporteur, policy-making should not be left to the judges and there is therefore an urgent need for the politicians to take action.
During the debate that followed, most speakers praised the report as in-depth and balanced.
They particularly welcomed demands made to the Commission to provide a clear timetable for action and clarify key terms such as "undue delay" and "comparable cost". The report’s call for an urgent submission of an information to patients framework was also endorsed.
It was generally emphasised that health tourism was a minor threat since the large majority of patients would still prefer to be treated locally because of linguistic barriers and family ties.
Most of the speakers agreed with the rapporteur that patient mobility requires a separate Commission proposal and should not be included in the proposed Services Directive.
Karin Jöns (PES, DE) and Jillian Evans (Greens/EFA, UK) suggested that reference should be made to the possibility of financing healthcare through Structural Funds pointing out to recent developments in this area, particularly in Greece and Spain.
Kathy Sinnott (ID, IE) emphasised the need to look more carefully at procedures and highlighted the problem of getting a doctor’s certification that a treatment aborad is necessary.
The deadline for MEPs to table amendments is 30 March 2005 at noon.
