News

A recent report by Caritas highlights the costs to the public of the European Crisis and calls for alternatives and solutions to alleviate the poverty, increased inequality and diminished access to services which have resulted.

In relation to care and health, the report notes that ‘[r]ecent health studies are beginning to highlight the ‘burden of human suffering’ that has followed from austerity policies (Legido-Quigly et al). Negative health impacts appear to be accumulating in countries where significant cuts to health budgets have occurred within health systems that were less resilient or weak, particularly Greece, Portugal and Spain (BMJ,2013). These and other countries proposing further cuts to health spending might note the findings of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2012) which suggest that arbitrary cuts to essential services may further destabilize health systems, increasing health and other costs in the longer term.’

The report recommends increased citizen participation in decision making, access to high quality health services, and a context dependent policy direction for health and care in each country, rather than a one size fits all approach to care.

A full version of the report can be found on the Caritas website here