Event “Sustainable healthcare for all by 2030

The event was organized by Politico, Philips and the Dutch Presidency and included speakers such as Martin Seychell (DG Sante), Ronald de Jon (Philips), Mark Dybul (Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria), Christiaan Rebergen (Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Martha Rojas-Urrego ( Global Advocacy CARE International), Elsa Zekeng (Leave  no -one behind), and Bob Collymore (Safaricom).

The event hosted talks on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3 (ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) and Goal 17 (revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development), which the Dutch presidency pledged to discuss during its mandate, but is separated from its policy on Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs.

The main outcomes of the event included:

• Human rights and gender equal policies should be prioritized in order to achieve sustainable healthcare systems and tackle societal diseases such as HIV and TB. This places a social focus on healthcare, moving away from diseases oriented ones.
  
• The need for cross-sector engagement to achieve sustainable healthcare, disease prevention and over medicalization. The common “treating sickness” mindset needs to shift to a disease prevention system, warranting contributions from all sectors particularly the education sector. Essentially, this model moves away from the tradition so called “western” model of healthcare.
  
• New and appropriate business and partnership models will need to evolve to deliver the investments needed for accessible healthcare, especially at the primary care level. Relationships need to shift from the patriarchal donor-beneficiary model to mutually beneficial partnerships. Furthermore, collaboration with private and public sector must be reinforced, and youth and communities should be further involved in the policy process  to achieve accessible and sustainable healthcare.
  
• Further investment in innovation. The Dutch Foreign Ministry has currently invested EUR 100 million in health insurance and has also provided credit for providers to invest in health innovation infrastructure. Additionally, the digital economy must be further developed which will offer opportunity for innovation
  

Despite this conference belonging to the policy area of international development, similar themes prevail in this area that are present in both the Dutch presidency and EU agenda for European healthcare.

Themes such as access to healthcare, multi stakeholder partnerships, diseases prevention, innovation and digital infrastructure are part of the ongoing developments in the EU healthcare agenda.

Both the new approach on improving healthcare in LMICs and EU’s increasing involvement in these markets, marks an advancement in global innovation and the global health market, and a further approach in addressing the current healthcare challenges.

The summary can be found here.