Alivia - Fundacja Onkologiczna
The Alivia Cancer Foundation was established in 2010 in Warsaw, Poland, to help cancer patients fight for their lives.
ID: 470130138060-24
Lobbying Activity
Response to Pharmaceutical Strategy - Timely patient access to affordable medicines
2 Jul 2020
As an organization representing cancer patients living in Poland, Alivia Foundation welcomes this new EU strategy on pharmaceuticals, specially in relation to the access to affordable medicines.
We believe that EU solidarity is a matter of common values shared by all EU member countries, and therefore the right to be treated according to the actual medical knowledge should be a common right of all EU patients. We also believe that all EU citizens should have equal access to medicines, not dependent on the place of their living.
Nowadays we observe substantial disparities in above areas between different countries - members of the European Union. For example in Poland we are far from reaching the ESMO standards accessibility (what we measure by our index - oncoindex.org/en) We are pleased to find this diagnosis in the point. 2 "Problem the initiative aims to tackle" section.
We are not sure whether the solutions presented in the B section will be sufficient to make the above ideas come true. With the launch of the European Cancer Patient’s Bill of Rights on World Cancer Day in 2014, cancer patients and a wider oncology community came together with the hope that it will empower European citizens to demand the best quality cancer care no matter where in Europe they reside.
1. The right of every European citizen to receive accurate information and be involved in their own care.
2. The right of every European citizen to access specialised cancer care underpinned by research and innovation.
3. The right of every European citizen to cost-effective health systems that ensure optimum cancer outcomes.
But after 6 years the situation didn’t change for the better and those rights are not respected.
The goal seems ambitious and the scale of measures that should be undertaken to accomplish it, should be adjusted to this great challenge.
We hope for more decisive steps planned in the EU strategy on pharmaceuticals that will ensure equal health opportunities for all cancer patients in European Union. We suggest wide debate on this subject and collecting ideas from different participants of this market and decision makers.
Life and health are our basic values and rights, and providing equality in such sensitive and common areas seems to be an urgent need for EU member countries to protect unity and common european values.
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