New international coalition pushes patient advocacy agenda
More than 100 patient groups across 38 countries have banded together to form an international patient advocacy coalition to be known as the World Patients Alliance.
The alliance aims to advocate for policies that ensure equal, affordable access to optimal healthcare, as well as to empower patients to express their needs and play a larger role in deciding their treatments. It will also work to improve patient education and healthcare literacy.
According to its website, the “umbrella organization of patients and patient organizations around the globe” represents “patients from all world regions and across all disease areas.” Coalition founders envision the active role patients will assume in their care as encompassing all stages of healthcare, including planning, provision, monitoring, research and evaluation of health services.
“Too often, healthcare policy fails to consider patients’ actual needs,” Hussain Jafri, founding director of the alliance and secretary general of Alzheimer’s Pakistan, says in prepared remarks. “The World Patients Alliance will work to make healthcare universally acceptable and affordable.”
In addition to Jafri, co-founders of the coalition include Jolanta Bilinska, director of development and social communication, City Medical Centre Dr. K. Jonscher, Lodz, Poland; Penney Cowan, founder and CEO, American Chronic Pain Association; Karla Ruiz de Castilla, CEO, Esperanta (Peru); Regina Mariam Namata Kamoga, executive director, Community Health and Information Network (Uganda); and World Patients Alliance Chair Andrew Spiegel, executive director, Global Colon Cancer Association.