Mind the Gap: Exploring healthcare and mental healthcare across Europe and in Poland

Mind the gap: Exploring healthcare and mental healthcare across Europe and in Poland

Join on the 29th of March from 19:00 to 21:00 CET the discussion on topics related to the healthcare policy across Europe and mental healthcare policy in Poland!

You can join in-person or participate online.

The event will be held in English. However, questions can also be asked in Polish. We are looking forward to exciting discussions about the healthcare across Europa and mental healthcare in Poland

At the beginning of the event, Evert Jan van Hasselt will give a talk about how throughout Europe we have healthcare systems that can be characterized as "mopping with the tap open". We wait until people get in trouble and then we start to "fix" their problems. It is time to close the tap! For this we need to make a shift from a "healthcare system" to a "healthy society". In order to make this possible governments and healthcare providers need to shift from working for people to working with people. Because for a healthy society active participation of citizens is a requirement.

Afterwards, there is a presentation by Tom Kerssemakers and Thijs van Schaik. Thijs and Tom are setting up a ‘citizen science’ program for Charge: Research Platform Volt, which is an independent research institute affiliated with Volt in The Netherlands. In this presentation, they will briefly discuss the citizen science platform and present the initial findings of their pilot study which is focused on healthcare. The main goal of the study was to study the different types of healthcare systems on a macro level, compare those and investigate whether there are opportunities to learn from each other within the EU.

The final presentation will be given by Ushma Issar on Health-ing Forward: Reimagining Mental Well-being. It introduces a revolutionary approach to mental health that shifts focus from crisis response to prevention. The presentation explores how cross-sector collaboration and policy innovation can create environments where mental well-being naturally flourishes, challenging industries to align financial incentives with positive health outcomes.

Then we will continue with a panel discussion with experts from Poland: Rafał Kłopotowski, Norbert Bolek and a third to be announced panelist. They will share with us the key ideas of the mental health care reform in Poland that started in 2017, which focuses on de-institutionalization, accessibility, and community-based care. They will tell us in detail what its main principles are and what it is like to work within its framework.

You will also have the opportunity to ask questions to our panel online via the chat or if you attend the event in-person. We will also try to make time for the option to ask the speakers your questions.

This is an European thematic community event of Volt Europa. Thematic communities facilitate online policy discussion, will be a landing place for many grassroots initiatives across Europe, support policy teams on all levels of Volt with expertise and writing election programmes, and much more.

This is the second event of an event series with European thematic communities, to expand their European basis. Join us every month with a different European community in a different country. This month with the Health Community (HealthCom) and in Poland.

Do you want to join more health policy discussions, stay up-to-date with the activities of HealthCom and are you a member of Volt? Then join us on Workplace: https://volteuropa.workplace.com/groups/eurhealthcom