Irelands Rising Inequality = Declining Health

Healthcare inequality growing across European Union

The so-called ‘healthcare inequality’ has grown across the European Union as many governments cut their health service budgets, Press TV reports.

Countries using the Euro currency have been most severely affected by the financial crisis that started in 2008, with widespread health service reforms being implemented in EU countries including Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Ireland, Press TV reported Thursday.

Healthcare experts recommend that most EU countries plan for the future and spend healthcare budgets more efficiently.

“We have obviously GDP growth, which is slowing. We have budgets, which are under pressure. We have debt and deficits. So the challenge, really, is how to reconcile this continuous pressure on public budgets, which health is placing, with the broader macro-economic context,” said Francesca Colombo, health division director with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

At the individual level, critics say the rich can afford to pay for private treatment, while those less well-off have no alternative and are easily excluded.

“Our member organizations are reporting on a daily basis of some of the barriers to access to healthcare, increasing co-payments, difficulties in accessing medicines, specialists, etc. This simply cannot go on. It is unacceptable in today’s Europe and we need to address it collectively,” said Nicola Bedlington, director of the European Patients Forum.

Europe is struggling with an economic crisis that erupted in early 2008, leaving millions unemployed and in financial distress.

The worsening debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered massive protests in many European countries

Sinn Féin Mountmellick – Serving The Community