Grow old, grow healthy in time of COVID-19 – AGE shares old age perspective in EU webinars
The European Commission organised and hosted a webinar on ‘COVID-19 in Society’ on the Health Policy Platform on 8 May 2020. AGE took part to share the perspective of older people.
This webinar organised by the EU Health Policy Platform addressed the COVID-19 epidemic’s impact on mental health, vulnerable groups and healthcare workers, and provided the opportunity for stakeholders and non-governmental organisations working in these three fields to share their experiences and voice their concerns.
After the welcome and opening statements by Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides, three short roundtable discussions were held, with representatives working in the health and mental health sectors and public services.
Our colleague Julia Wadoux presented AGE main messages during COVID-19, summed in three points:
Julia also stresses the need to draw lessons from this crisis and ensure proper investment in:
health promotion and disease prevention to make our societies more resilient to future crisis,
quality long-term care (at home, in the community or in residential settings) based on people’s needs and dignity. Reference can be made here to the principle 18 of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
The current crisis presents also an opportunity “to change the way we think, feel and act towards age and ageing”, making sure we don’t treat older people as invisible but, on the contrary involve and consult them. This is actually one of the key messages of the forthcoming Decade of Healthy Ageing 2020-2030, proposed by the World Health Prganization (WHO) and which should be launched next October. A great opportunity to team up from the local level to the global level, trough the national and the European one.
AGE’s message was also highlighted at the opening webinar of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) launching the European Public Health Week from 11 to 15 May.
