Het Spaanse Rode Kruis vindt dat 'nu + dan ooit' hulp nodig is voor mensen die door de crisis in Spanje in moeilijkheden zijn gekomen.
EUObserver: "The Spanish Red Cross has turned its focus away from war-ravaged conflict zones to help destitute people in Spain hit by EU-imposed austerity measures."
TheLancet: "The European region has seen remarkable heath gains in those populations that have experienced progressive improvements in the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, and work. However, inequities, both between and within countries, persist. The review reported here, of inequities in health between and within countries across the 53 Member States of the WHO European region, was commissioned to support the development of the new health policy framework for Europe: Health 2020.
The European review builds on the global evidence and recommends policies to ensure that progress can be made in reducing health inequities and the health divide across all countries, including those with low incomes. Action is needed—on the social determinants of health, across the life course, and in wider social and economic spheres—to achieve greater health equity and protect future generations."
TheLancet: "What are Europe's leaders doing? Prime ministers, presidents, and finance ministers have gathered on numerous occasions during the past 3 years for crisis talks about the region's flat-lining economy, and they have failed miserably to produce any meaningful results. Now the European Central Bank has taken up the rescue baton. But in all the discussions about bonds, bailouts, and exits from the eurozone, Europe's policy makers have lost sight of the health and humanitarian disaster unfolding across the region.
Their meagre efforts have done little to help the lives of Europe's citizens, including the 150 000 immigrants in Spain now not eligible to receive free public health care after government austerity measures. They certainly did not help the 77-year-old Greek pensioner who shot himself in the head outside the country's parliament in April in a public act of financial despair. Or the other people—young and old—who have tragically taken their own lives in Greece, Ireland, and Italy because of their desperate feelings of hopelessness about their future.
Even outside the eurozone, people in Europe are struggling. Last week, Save the Children released a report—It Shouldn't Happen Here—documenting poverty among 3·5 million children in the UK (a figure which is set to soar by 400 000 by 2015). The report finds that children are going without a warm coat or new shoes, one in eight of the poorest children go without at least one hot meal a day, and parents are eating less, so that their children do not go hungry. It should provide sober reading for the coalition government that claimed it was committed to eradicating poverty.
A Review by Michael Marmot and colleagues published in The Lancet today also offers a reality check for policy makers. It shows that health inequities are increasing in many European countries and the 2008 economic meltdown—and the response to it—has exacerbated the health divide. Such inequities arise from inequities in the distribution of power, money, and resources. Europe's leaders take note: Europe is in the midst of a crisis, a human one."
Ook in Australië slaat het geprivatiseerde gezondheidswezen toe. Onnodige medische procedures worden toegepast die enkel tot doel hebben de kas van de artsen te spekken:
TheAge: "Private hospital births: 'horror' figures
TENS of thousands of Australian women with a low risk of birth complications and delivering in private hospitals are routinely receiving medical interventions once only given as a last resort. A leading midwifery expert has described the practice as ''horrifying''.
In a landmark study of nearly 700,000 women in New South Wales hospitals, those giving birth privately were found to have a 20 per cent lower chance of delivering their first child through normal vaginal birth.
''The fact that these procedures, which were initially life-saving, are now so commonplace and do not appear to be associated with improved [baby] death rates demands close review,'' found the study, which is published today in the British Medical Journal's online journal, BMJ Open.
'The findings … suggest a two-tier system exists in Australia without any obvious benefit for women and babies and a level of medical over-servicing which is difficult to defend …''"