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Many of the changes we wish to make take
time to implement and take effect. Policies for
health must therefore take a long-term perspective.
WHO 'Health for All' for the 21st
century
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In light of this, the Working Group on PD made the following
recommendations:
- We urge support for these global efforts to reform
medical education in support of the WHO Health for
All Initiative. Steps to increase public awareness
of PD as a priority health problem should be pursued
vigorously, including the collection of salient information
about all aspects of PD, (epidemiology, available treatment
modalities, costs of care, consequences to patients
and families, resulting from a loss of independence,
types of care givers and support services for PD sufferers,
and so forth), along with widespread dissemination
of this information to the public, health authorities,
medical schools and teaching hospitals. Experts in
health care teams, especially in those situations where
other groups of health workers or patients serve as
team captains.
- That all health authorities worldwide support the
WHO Health for All concept, and implement the programme
in the case of PD consistent with the resources that
are available at each stage of industrial development.
To provide the largest number of the most important
services for the largest number of people, priority
health problems must be identified in each society.
For disorders such as PD, there should be a national
steering group comprised of patients, care givers,
and national organisations that advocate patients'
interests, and should include health care providers
of all types, including doctors who represent specialist,
sub specialist, and general practitioner viewpoints
and experiences.
- That health authorities take steps to achieve coordination
of effort by health workers within the three-tier model
of service delivery presented in the broad outline
above, and to arrange care that is structured in accordance
with results of cost-effectiveness studies of alternative
provider arrangements and sites of care provision across
the full spectrum of illness.
- Given total national costs and individual financial
burdens that exceed private and governmental resources,
the WHO Working Group on Parkinson's disease recommends
a partnership between neuroscientists and health workers
to devise ways to improve access to needed care and
treatment for all PD patients, and to foster practice
guidelines to assist health care workers in the management
of medication side effects, especially among the elderly.
- Recommends a partnership between doctors and other
health care workers with voluntary (non- Governmental)
organisations that represent patient interests to promote
better public understanding of PD, to reach out to
all ethnic and cultural groups of patients and to overcome
negative attitudes in society toward chronic neurologic
and psychiatric illness.
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