As UK participants returned from last week’s European Health Forum in Gastein (read more), Austria, newspaper headlines calling for “Cuts in wasteful NHS bureaucracy” and “Pay freezes for high earners” will have reinforced the messages they heard. Debate focused on the impact of the financial crisis on health and what governments should do about it. […]
Category: Tessa Richards
Tessa Richards: Paying for health in Europe
Two years ago health ministers in the Czech Republic decided to focus on the financial sustainability of health systems during their six months at the EU presidency helm. Was this foresight? Did the ministers know what the bankers did not- that economic Armageddon was round the corner? Either way, the financial crisis was certainly concentrating […]
Tessa Richards: Do you have a global partner?
How far does your interest in global health stretch? Far enough to have forged a link between your hospital or practice and a similar one in a low income country? If the answer is no but the idea appeals log on to www.thet.org, the website of the Tropical Health and Education Trust, or THET as […]
Tessa Richards: Everyone’s smiling in Washington
In Washington’s elegant Union station Barack Obama’s face shines out from the newspaper stacks and the shops in the concourse are bristling with OB merchandise. I pass on the fridge magnets but I’m tempted by the T-shirts, many of which carry the words “change” and “hope” alongside his smiling portrait. Optimism is in the air […]
Tessa Richards: Postoperative posting
Sarah Palin may have raised the profile of female politicians, but I’m lifting my glass to the girls who saw me through surgery last week. I did spot the odd male among the panoply of health professionals who looked after me, but they were thin on the ground. From the consultant surgeon and anaesthetist to […]
Tessa Richards: WHO in Tallinn
Start with Handel’s Alleluia chorus, include a fireworks display, lay on a dinner hosted by government, during which the director general of the WHO makes a cabaret style eulogy. Add addresses from global health gurus, contributions from European health ministers, a scattering of parallel sessions and you have the making of a notable conference. And […]
Tessa Richards at the Global Forum for Health Research, Beijing 29 Oct-2 Nov
” I believe that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP, but by the condition of its worst off. ” Zygmunt Bauman Equitable access to health care was the theme of this years meeting of the Global Forum of Health Research in Beijing and Margaret Chan, director general of WHO set […]
Tessa Richards at the European Health Forum Gastein, 3-6 October
By 0900 on the 3 Oct the hills of the picturesque Gastein valley in Austria were alive with the sound of some 600 politicians, policy makers, academics, industry leaders, and NGO’s, exchanging views on the future of health care in Europe. Eight hours earlier it had been silent and chilly, as three of us prowled […]
Tessa Richards at the World Demographic Association’s 3rd “World Ageing and Generations Congress,” September 6-9
“The older I get the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball the further I am rolled the more I gain” Susan Anthony (suffragist) 1890-1906. On the airport bus en route to the conference I eavesdrop on a conversation which contains the words “patient” and “the NHS.” […]