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CEAPIR - Kidney Patients In EuropePlease note, this page is a summary of the full conference speech (click here for the full transcript). Gerard BoekhoffGerard Boekhoff was born in the Netherlands
in 1962; he suffered renal failure at the age of three. After
numerous
stays in hospital, operations and other treatment the only option
was dialysis. He dialysed from 1978 until 1982 when he received
a successful transplantation. He is vice president of CEAPIR and
talked about the difference between the health professionals’ perspective
of renal disease and the patients’ perspective, and the
importance of having patient associations at local, regional
and national level.
He went on to talk about the European dimension. |
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There is a tendency all over Europe where Governments take a step back
and leave it to what they call the field to organise society and also
to organise healthcare. Most of the time with not enough money, so it
is the elderly, the people who are less fortunate, and the chronically
ill that will suffer most from this if they don’t unite. It may
sound a little bit old fashioned, but we are truly stronger together than
we are one by one. The same story of course goes for Europe. More and
more decisions are made on a European level and they have direct influence
on individual kidney patients in countries.
Since 1981 we have had CEAPIR - European Kidney Patients Association - with about 300,000 kidney patients in 20 Associations. Delegates get together once every year in different hosting countries. It is also very inspiring and very interesting we all learn so much in one weekend because we share our experiences. CEAPIR is a voluntary organisation and the executive committee has five elected members. Knud Erben from Germany is President, and he is at the Conference. So is Mark Murphy, treasurer, from Ireland and Tim Statham from the NKF is my fellow vice president.
We want ESRF higher on the list of the European agenda. We are starting to work on establishing a European quality standard in the treatment of ESRF. We want to cooperate and exchange information and of course we want to improve organ donation and transplantation. We want to do a lot more; we have to do a lot more. There is much work done already, but there is of course a lot of work still to be done.
Please note, this page is a summary of the full conference speech (click here for the full transcript).
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