Karpacz likewise the places of other Economic Forums (eg. Gastein, Davos) is a small village in Poland’s countryside, but the biggest economic event in the CEE region.
Such Forums do not exist without topics on health. The organizers managed to build two panels of very heterogeneous speakers: WHO director general, Health Minister from Czechia, Deputy Health Minister from Poland, Member of the Parliament from Slovakia, academic representatives just to name a few from the illustrious members of the panel. The patient perspective was represented by EU-PFF, (umbrella patient organization of pulmonary fibrosis).
In the first panel we talked about various projects on how to de-carbonize the healthcare, where – among others – the importance of telemedicines and online meetings, the ERN-Lung concept of satellite structure, the carbon footprint of clinical trials and how patient organizations can advocate to attract more attention to air pollution and heat waves were highlighted.
Health inequities in CEE is undisputable a topic which cannot be emphasized enough and was the subject of the secon panel. The politicians provided insight on most recent developments, while, as part of the patient perspective – EU-PFF’s benchmark report, ERN-Lung Go East project and some examples from CEE region were mentioned.
There was a live webstream of the panels with several hundred online participants.
Overall, the meeting was quite a success as we managed to position pulmonary fibrosis as well as rare lung diseases on the landscape.
Post-event media coverage will follow, however the main Polish papers already picked up the panels prior to the event (https://www.rp.pl/wydarzenia-gospodarcze/art42910461-troska-o-pacjentow-troska-o-planete)
