News Link n. 64

The news links are part of the research project GESPAM (Geopolitica, Salute Pubblica e Accesso alle Medicine/Geopolitics, Public Health and Access to Medicines), which aims to focus on the best options for the use of trade and government rules related to public health by resource-limited countries.

 

News Link 64

UNCTAD’s Trade and Environment Review 2013 “Wake up before it is too late: Make agriculture truly sustainable now for food security in a changing climate” 

Italy Calls for Food Security to Be U.N. Priority

Hunger, Food Security, and the African Land Grab

Climate change and land use: Making the difficult choice

IPCC report more certain about global warming

Global warming likely to breach 2C threshold, climate scientists conclude 

UNITED Nations Human rights: Seminar on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, 2013 Room XXIV, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 3-4 October 2013

20% of DCI to health & basic education 

28 Ottobre 2013, Camera dei Deputati, Roma:  1a Conferenza Nazionale Decrescita, Sostenibilità e Salute 

Salute e cooperazione internazionale: la FNOMCeO per il volontariato medico e la collaborazione tra istituzioni (Roma, 4-5 ottobre)

Research-based pharmaceutical industry calls for public-private sector engagement to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in planning new development agenda

US Pressure on India Threatens Access to Medicines

Will international development be the undoing of David Cameron?

Why Stephen Harper has no time for the UN

US Ambassador: WIPO Needs More Balance – Toward Rightsholders

WIPO Approves 15 New Observers, Including DNDi, COHRED; Pirate Parties Rejected 

WTO Members Prepare for “Final Countdown” as Ministerial Looms

Visualizing progress on 3 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Analysis: How to tackle slavery in Asia

We Need More Women’s Voices Influencing Our Future Global Goals 

China pledges to aid Thai development

Community consultation published for new ARV guidelines  

Millions of children in India to benefit from IKEA’s €60 million to UNICEF 

How Many Bed Nets Equal a Life Saved? – Why Results Matter for Value for Money 

The Role of Neglected Disease-Endemic, Emerging-Economy Countries in Neglected Disease R&D: Latin America on the Rise

 

 

An ontology of health and sustainable health regions

It is questionable if there has ever been made an attempt to use diplomatic acting, to steer the EU towards a European regional framework.  A framework which should only be based on  politics  used to enforce communicative social systems of networks, and  on indicators of health, well-being and happiness of EU citizens

 An Ontology of Health and Sustainable Health Regions

 

By Tomas Mainil*  

Associate professor, HZ University of Applied Sciences

Capacity group Health, Governance and Transnationalism

From an outside perspective, the EU can seem like several countries or nation states with different goals and different strategies. It is very difficult for the EU commission to govern these states, or act as an interludium.  Historical conflicts have always been embedded within these nation states.  It is questionable if there has ever been made an attempt to use diplomatic acting, to steer the EU towards a European regional framework.  A framework which should only be based on  politics  used to enforce communicative social systems of networks, and  on indicators of health, well-being and happiness of EU citizens.  Power builds at a regional level where regional and city governments have to decide and show vision how to organize  and to govern in such a manner that communities of citizens are still  encouraged to support the political leadership.

What is the solution to mediate the power display of political decision processes?  One possibility is the installment of a framework of sustainable – but also self-regulating health regions in the EU DNA of nation states.  Hypothetically , if France and Germany would be organized   in a similar set of health regions (Mainil, 2013; Botterill, Pennings and Mainil, 2013), the result would be that in the following years, national borders would become less intrusive in citizens’€™ lifes, creating a EU space of health regions, not based on political modes of power, but based on a balance of communicative action and strategic action.

To apply this knowledge to an existing case, we see now that Belgium and the Netherlands are slowly moving towards a joint economic agenda.  Both countries have recently experienced a new king on the throne of their monarchies, which enforces the national identity of their citizens. Both countries have an efficient health system, different in character, but focused on the provision of health care for their own patients.  The quality of their health systems should also enforce the streams of transnational patients to Belgium and the Netherlands, however.  Following some recent articles from the New York Times (Rosenthal, 2013), US citizens are choosing to be treated in Belgium.  The Dutch province of Zeeland is putting efforts to construct itself as a sustainable health region. We have arrived at a momentum in which health and health care systems are challenged on economic and structural efficiency. The next step could be to use health care as an engine to distribute power more equitably, and to enforce sustainable networks of systemic health regions.  One big hurdle are the un-moving movers: medical professionals work in power constellations.  This leads to a strategic confirmation of this group of professionals.  As transnational health care is being developed, new generations of medical doctors have the choice to engage or to confirm.

This rationale towards a dialogical regionalism is currently only a powerless philosophical stance.  Given the need for efficiency and cost budgeting in the national frameworks, however, it could also be seen as a functional tool to formalize governance.  The recently adopted EU Directive on the application of patient rights is a EU initiative to regulate patient mobility.  We argue that the additional governance structure of sustainable health region development could instigate the further development of the existing regulative framework on patient mobility.  The focus of the capacity group Health, Governance and Transnationalism is to assess and test the viability of self-regulating health regions.  The first case studies will be executed in the Netherlands and Belgium.

 

Sources

Mainil, T. (2013). Transnational health care and Medical Tourism: Understanding 21st century patient mobility; towards a rationale of transnational health region development. NRIT Media

Botterill, D., Pennings, G. and Mainil, T. (2013). Medical tourism and Transnational health care. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Rosenthal, E. (2013). In Need of a New Hip, but Priced Out of the U.S. The New York Times, august 3

 

* Dr. Tomas Mainil is Lecturer at Breda University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands).  He is responsible for the research line ´Transnational health care in sending and receiving contexts´ which was originated at the Centre for cross-cultural Understanding (CCU). He is research fellow at the Research Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (CELLO), University of Antwerp (Belgium).  He holds an MA in Sociology (Medical Sociology) and a MSc in Quantitative Analysis, and previously worked at the University of Antwerp (department Sociology) and Ghent University (department of General practice and primary health care) on health-related subjects.  His main interests are globalization and health, the policy and governance dynamics of transnational health care (PhD) and the internal and external characteristics  of the transnational health user. 

 

 

News Link n. 63

The news links are part of the research project GESPAM (Geopolitica, Salute Pubblica e Accesso alle Medicine/Geopolitics, Public Health and Access to Medicines), which aims to focus on the best options for the use of trade and government rules related to public health by resource-limited countries.

 

News Link 63

Humanitarian futures 

It’s Decision Time in the Fight Against Aids, TB and Malaria

Kapuscinski development lectures series 

More Health for the Money: Putting Incentives to Work for the Global Fund and Its Partners 

Public Engagement in Health Priority Setting in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Current Trends and Considerations for Policy 

Health Workforce Brain Drain: From Denouncing the Challenge to Solving the Problem

Three Global Health Successes That I Witnessed Firsthand

Grassroots action’ in livestock feeding to help curb global climate change

A Human Rights Approach to Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines

Parliament Member Named IP Adviser To UK Prime Minister

Meeting Highlights Use Of Open Data In Science, Health And Sustainable Development 

Open Knowledge Conference interventions (Geneva, 17-18 September 2013)  

Peruvian Legislators File Motion Seeking Public Debate on the Trans Pacific Partnership 

Chi paga il conto della crisi finanziaria globale?

Africa: Untangling China’s Aid to Africa

Does the Giver Matter? The Human Development Impact of Chinese Aid

Economic development and rural land rights

Building a sustainable foundation for land rights

Why #landmatters for economic development

Does $2,000 save a life? Conditionally, yes  

COOPERAZIONE ITALIANA ALLO SVILUPPO: APPROVATI 57 PROGETTI PROMOSSI DA ONG

A new vaccine in monkeys – could it be the answer to HIV cure?

Experimental leishmaniasis vaccine could overcome challenge of multiple species 

UK pledges £30 million for neglected disease drug R&D

US Congress Members Urge US To Oppose Re-Election Of WIPO Director Gurry 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News Link n. 62

The news links are part of the research project GESPAM (Geopolitica, Salute Pubblica e Accesso alle Medicine/Geopolitics, Public Health and Access to Medicines), which aims to focus on the best options for the use of trade and government rules related to public health by resource-limited countries.

 

News Link 62

G20 leaves developing world behind in tax evasion fight

Hot Topics in the Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP): How Will Things Shake Out?

Trade Ministers, Leaders Give Push To TPP 

Climate makes a discreet comeback on the Brussels agenda

Universal health coverage within reach for developing countries

Global child mortality rates “halved”

PHM Global News, August 2013 

South Centre: Intellectual Property Negotiations Monitor – Issue No. 8, August 2013 

China-Africa Health Cooperation: A New Era?

WHO calls for research for universal health access

Innovative finance can boost global health R&D

WHO Now Charging Fees For Drug Prequalification, Raising Access Fears 

From rhetoric to action: Reaping gains through enhanced women’s land and property rights 

Why we should care about women’s right to land

Recommendations towards an integrated, life-course approach to women’s health in the post-2015 agenda

At the crossroads: transforming health systems to address women’s health across the life course 

Food price fears push EU lawmakers to put a lid on biofuels growth

Oxfam reaction: MEPs’ biofuel compromise is not enough to tackle hunger in poor countries

Biofuels project pushing thousands of people into hunger in Africa

To Feed the World in 2050, We Need to Discuss Agriculture at UN Climate Change Talks 

Growing Share of HIV/AIDS Burden Shifts to Changing Group of Regions 

Survey: 7 out of 8 persons say US residents should not pay more than other high income countries for NIH funded drugs

How to ensure access to good quality, safe and effective medical products in the African Region

‘Strategic Philanthropy’ Shifts Too Much Power to Donors

How realtime evaluation can sharpen our work in fragile states

Will there actually be an aid minister under Abbott?