Update 62

Update 62, "What role for the EU in Health Care?" - now available online

Traditionally, national governments in Europe have guarded jealously their right to manage health care. They claim this "subsidiarity" not only because the health sector is a major employer, procurer and service provider. An estimated eight per cent of the European Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is devoted to health spending.
In this issue:
Click on the title to get to the corresponding article Health care and the internal market
Free movement of patients: is it good for patients and (...)

Free movement of professionals: opening up opportunities or perpetuating problems?

The free movement of nurses and doctors within Europe provides new employment opportunities. But will it also perpetuate existing shortages? Glenn Gathercole provides the perspective of the Standing Committee of Nurses of the European Union.
The European Commission communication "New European Labour Markets, Open to All, with Access for All" (1) ensures that people are free to move throughout Europe to find work. The move promotes the single European market by liberating the movement of (...)

Spanish presidency: interview with Celia Villalobos Talero, Spanish Health Minister

Which priorities has the Spanish Presidency chosen in the field of Public Health and why?
Celia Villalobos Talero: I would like to begin by making a clarification. In English, public health refers to the health of populations and to health services. In Spain, salaud publica refers only to tobacco and alcohol and the other factors relating to health status but it never includes health care services. I understand in answering your question that I include public health plus health (...)

Free movement of patients: is it in the interests of patients and citizens’?

More people are crossing borders for medical treatment. But is cross-border health care a good thing? Willy Palm of Association Internationale de la Mutualité (AIM) addresses this question and describes the recent European Court of Justice cases that have made so-called "health tourism" more accessible.
Cross-border mobility of patients has become a very topical issue. Successive rulings of the European Court of Justice in the cases Kohll and Decker, and more recently in Smits-Peerbooms, (...)

Complementary health care: is there a role for the EU?

The following is a message to UPDATE readers from MEP Nuala Ahern (Greens/EFA, Ireland), Chair of European Parliamentary Working Group on Complementary and Natural Medicine. She is planning a seminar in November 2002 on how complementary medicine can be integrated into the main health care structures.
Nuala Ahern writes: I am both a consumer and legislator at European level with regard to complementary medicine and natural health. I can say there has been an explosion of consumer interest (...)

Free movement of pharmaceuticals: what defines the prices?

The forces at work to define the prices of pharmaceuticals are extremely complex. Patents on new drugs, EU regulation, and monopolistic buying by governments to supply national health services all play important roles, as Leigh Hancher of the University of Tilburg explains.
Prices for medicines, especially prescription medicines, continue to diverge dramatically across the Member States of the European Union - with some market leaders costing up to 50% more in the high price Northern (...)

Integrated health care in Europe

Europeans want non-conventional medical therapies integrated into mainstream medicine, according to Stephen Gordon of European Council for Classical Homeopathy.
Across Europe a significant and growing proportion of the public, and increasing numbers of health care professionals, are actively choosing to integrate various forms of traditional, alternative, complementary or non-conventional medicine into their health care provision and practice. Interventions such as acupuncture, (...)