Cross-border healthcare: significant improvements
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) takes note of the positive vote on 31 March 2009 by the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare.
This vote significantly improves the initial proposal for the directive and addresses ETUC’s key concerns, notably patients’ rights and the scope of the directive, which is now limited to cross-border patient care and does not include freedom of movement of service providers.
Improvements should nevertheless also be made:
- concerning the question of prior authorisation and its consequences on the security and balance of national healthcare and hospitalisation systems;
- but also in relation to the inclusion of the social dimension and not simply the internal market aspects of healthcare systems, in particular by completing the legal bases of the proposal for a directive.
Further information
The report summarising the compromise and consolidated amendments is available online at the European Parliament’s website at:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/envi_20090330_bowis_compr_new_/envi_20090330_bowis_compr_new_en.pdf
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