Society

Two people have died in Spain after contracting the human form of "mad cow disease", variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) that is is thought to be transmitted in infected meat and bone. Since 2000, more than 800 Spanish have suffered from different types of vCJD.
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) was first found in humans in 1995 and is thought to be transmitted in infected meat and bone. Since 2000, more than 800 Spanish have suffered from different types of vCJD but the only (...)

European Union finance ministers recently agreed on the necessity to improve health care, welfare and pensions to afford Europe’s generous social safety net in future. The EU nations also agreed on reforms to the European International Monetary Fund (IMF)
European Union finance ministers talked about the possibility of reforming social welfare systems with Europe’s workers facing a growing burden from pensions and health care costs of older people.
There is a need to improve health care, (...)

Continuity of care for patients, the quality of training for doctors and the efficiency of hospitals could be compromised when junior doctors hours have to be reduced further next year to meet the requirements of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD), according to the Royal College of Physicians’s Lead on EWTD Professor Roy Pounder.
From August 2009, implementation of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD), will prevent junior doctors from working more that 48 hours per week. The (...)

On 24-25 April 2008, EPHA participated as a pannelist to the "European Networking Conference", organised by the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation in Prishtina, Kosovo.
With the financial support of European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF) is enacting the project "Civil Society Organisations in Support of Kosovo’European and Regional Integration’".
Within this framework, KCSF organised a two-day conference entitled "European Networking Conference" (...)

On 29 February 2008 the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) Council and the European Commission jointly adopted the 2008 Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion
Backgroung
The report is based on the Commission proposal for the Joint Report presented on 30th January 2008 (COM/2008/0042final), and adopted with some changes at the 5 February meeting of the Social Protection Committee. The report focuses on priorities and progress made in the (...)

The European Commission has called for quick action and strengthened national co-operation on lead market opportunities for eHealth in order to increase economic benefits and improve quality of health services.
http://ec.europa.eu/information_soc...
"The prospective return on investment of eHealth is relatively high when compared to the costs inherent in the health sector," argues a Commission report on accelerating the development of the eHealth market in Europe, published in late December (...)

A group of NGOs sent a joint statement to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso to raise awareness on the sensitive issue of Roma social exclusion across Europe.
It is a fact that Roma people are subjected to discrimination in many parts of Europe. Hence, it is extremely important that a group of eight NGOs, among which include Amnesty International and the Open Society, is raising awareness on the need of EU-wide strategy on Roma. To get this message across to EU leaders, the (...)

Launched in January 2007, the European Disability Forum has met their challenge of collecting one million signatures across the European Union in support of comprehensive EU disability legislation.
Yannis Vardakastanis, President of the European Disability Forum, announced this landmark accomplishment and noted the importance of such a strong signal from over one million Europeans to the European Union leaders, which cannot be ignored.
The campaign called on the European Union for (...)

This article has been updated with the KVBB article: 116 117 - single European freephone number for medical on-call services
The European Commission has been investigating dedicating specific telephone numbers to services of social value across the EU.
In the Spring the Directorate General of the Commission in charge of telecoms and information technology, DG for Information Society and Media held a consultation on what such services could be, and requested those wishing to run services to (...)

The European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) is concerned that "European citizenship" is an issue that belongs to everyone and yet no one is claiming responsibility for it. ECAS has issued a petition to encourage the European Parliament to create a forum in which this increasingly important issues can be discussed.
Many questions need to be answered regarding what it means to be a European Citizen. The European institutions need to ensure that their policies and processes represent the views (...)