“The COVID-19 pandemic calls for urgent reform of health care, surveillance and governance in the WHO European Region and beyond”, Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s Europe Director.

On September 10th, WHO published the recommendations of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development. This Commission has been set up under the presidency of Mario Monti, the former Prime-Minister of Italy. The recommendations advise for reforms of the health and social care systems, investment programmes and improvements of the governance because of the pandemic. There are 7 objectives for the future of health and social policy according to the Commission that comprised personalities from a wide range of disciplines as well as former ministers and academics.
For each of the objectives there are a number of recommendations to achieve these objectives. While AIM can certainly subscribe to all of these objectives and has called itself for such action before, we deplore that it does not mention the importance of having access to not for profit health insurance, based on solidarity and democracy, such as mutuals, once, whereas we consider our contribution to be vital in re-building a better post-pandemic world. We welcome the close link that is made to the Sustainable Development Goals in the report. This pandemic has shown that more than ever, the global society needs to step up action in order to achieve and implement those goals. AIM will influence on the further works that will follow out of this report. You can find the report here.