War on a healthy life in Europe
Have you ever felt some times that some paths you take have open doors all the way through? Not sure if it is my pure luck or just me doing what I love but I am super incredibly happy that I had the opportunity with this internship. I realised that everything that happened in the last 2 years allowed me to get the chance to come to Brussels this year and allowed me to take part in learning about how policy is being changed and meet some of the people that are on the forefront of fighting for a better future and a better life for the humans in Europe and beyond.
I get it’s a bit of a far-fetched thing to say that this experience has been 2 years in the making but had Franziska from the previous year not have done this experience this time last year and had I not made the effort to meet up with her and learn more about it I probably would not have applied, convinced that it would have been too hard and she would not have encouraged me to send the application as soon as possible. Strongly believing that everything happens for a reason, I applied to the internship with my dearest friend Sofie and both of us got accepted and told to pack our bags and start our adventures in Belgium. Soon enough the beautiful Marta also was lucky enough to join us and now here we are, with new EPHA colleagues discussing the cafe’s, restaurants and travel plans we must cover during our stay.
The first week of our internship we covered a very intensive introduction day. I honestly in all my years of education haven't had such a long run of intensive listening to each of the EPHA Campaign managers discussing their campaign and the fight they are facing with the legislators of Europe to standardise certain aspects the European law that will bring higher standards of health policy across each and every state. You would be surprised how quickly large organisations work around restrictions that our government puts in place and take advantage of the population all in the name of profit. The fight is real against this sort of behaviour form the most influential of organisations and its front lines are right here in Brussels.
Discussing the colossal cost of medicine that individuals poor OR rich cannot any longer afford falls on the hands of our health system. So instead of using money on preventing chronic disease the money is spent in what I could only explain as a panic like state to try and save individuals that essentially have lost all battle fronts. Keeping patients that can still put up a fair fight without any options to push through for a win against whatever disease is trying to kill them, until they are essentially on their death bed and in the final hope to save them the government will pay yet another 2-3 hundred thousand dollars for a one month treatment plan. YES THAT HAPPENS AND YES THATS HOW MUCH YOUR DRUGS COST!
What an incredible piece of knowledge that helped shape this particular issue in my mind. Understanding that the government is only trying to fix patches of irreparable wounds of our public health systems, but the answer really is far harder and more complex than what seemed to be an obvious one around where money should be distributed. Its not like this isn’t the goal, but the cost of medicine for the sick is simply dis-proportionate. After all we are talking about human lives and how can that be less important than to make money?
I will not bombard you with ALL the information we have received within that one day. However, I will keep filling you in on the many learnings I gather and hope you too will experience this with me.
