Concept Note
Context
The promotion of health is a fundamental aspect of the progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and at the same time constitutes a necessary component of socio-economic stability. It has been rightly observed that ‘Weak health systems remain an obstacle in many countries, resulting in deficiencies in coverage for even the most basic health services’.
The close correlation between overall development policies and the sustainability of welfare and health-care systems has been highlighted, in various international conferences organised by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. On the occasion of the thirty-first international conference, which was held in November 2016 and whose title was ‘Towards a Welcoming and Supportive Culture of Health at the Service of People with Rare and Neglected Pathologies’, it was also emphasised that such conditions of illness inflict grave health-care and economic burdens on populations, in particular in the poorest countries of the world-
During the course of this international conference of 2016, data were presented from international studies on the factors that determine global health disparities. The papers highlighted that life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015. This increase was greatest in the African Region of the World Health Organisation (+9.4 years), as a consequence of the increase in child survival, progress in malaria control, and expanded access to anti-retrovirals for the treatment of the HIV virus.
Some studies revealed that life expectancy for children born in 2015 was 71.4 years (73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males). However, the data described in the relative documents showed that the gap between low-income and high-income countries remains notable. Indeed, new born children in 29 countries – all of them high-income – have an average life expectancy of 80 years or more (with a high point of 86.8 years for Japanese females), while new born children in the 22 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have a life expectancy of less than 60 years, with a low point for both sexes in Sierra Leone (50.8 years for females and 49.3 years for males).
In addition, the data of the reports that are available on subjects connected with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicate the amount of work that still has to be done in this area. Indeed, each year:
303,000 women die because of complications connected with pregnancy and childbirth;
almost 6 million children die before the age of 6; 2 million people are newly infected with HIV, and there are 9.6 million new cases of tuberculosis and 214 million cases of malaria; 1.7 billion people need treatment for neglected tropical diseases; more than 10 million people die before the age of 70 because of cardiovascular diseases and cancer; 800,000 people commit suicide; over a million people die from road traffic injuries;
4.3 million people die because of pathologies connected with pollution caused by fuels used in cooking;
3 million people die because of outdoor pollution.
The report World Health Statistics 2016 observes that these challenges cannot be defeated without tackling the risk factors that contribute to the development of pathological situations:
1.1 billion people smoke tobacco products;
156 million children under the age of 5 are stunted and 42 million children under the age of 5 are overweight;
1.8 billion people drink contaminated water and 946 million people do not have basic hygiene facilities;
3.1 billion people use polluting fuels for cooking.
The conclusions of the thirty-first international conference highlighted the need to examine in a suitable way, and to address in concrete terms, the subject of inequalities in the field of health and the social, economic, environmental and cultural determining factors lie behind them.
The Holy See followed on from this by announcing its concrete commitment to addressing global health inequalities on the occasion of the Seventieth World Health Assembly (Geneva, Switzerland, 22-27 May 2017).
By his apostolic letter Humanam Progressionem in the form of a Motu Proprio, the Holy Father Francis instituted the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. This dicastery is especially responsible for questions relating to migrations, those in need, the sick and the excluded, the marginalised, the victims of armed conflicts and of natural disasters, people in prison, the unemployed, and the victims of all forms of slavery and torture.
On 1 January 2017 the responsibilities of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, of the Pontifical Council ‘Cor Unum’, of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, and of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers became the responsibilities of the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Pope Francis has emphasised the importance of giving an impulse to concrete activity to ensure that those determinants of health that continue to fuel disparities in this field are diminished. As the Supreme Pontiff has observed: ‘Health, indeed, is not a consumer good, but a universal right which means that access to healthcare services cannot be a privilege’.
Objectives
With this idea to guide it, the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development has organised an international conference on the subject ‘Addressing Global Health Inequalities’. It has established partnerships that will allow an alignment of research and development in the field of health care with global demand and needs at the level of health in order to assure greater access to treatment and to essential medical products for everyone. This international conference has also been organised in cooperation with the International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions (CIISAC), an institution of the Church that has its roots in an association created in 1985 at the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.
Through its functions, CIISAC coordinates contacts, communication, cooperation, the exchange of knowledge and solidarity between Catholic health-care institutions throughout the world. Especial attention is paid to those institutions that work in geographical areas that are in a state of difficulty. CIISAC directs its activities to the over 116,000 social and health-care institutions and entities of the Church, to people and health-care workers, religious and lay people, in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Oceania. Catholic health-care institutions, dispensaries, surgeries, clinics, health-care missions, hospitals and care-providing entities are a testimony to the work of the Church down the centuries and they are to be found throughout the world, constituting today a daily point for listening to and understanding needs, as well as the daily operational arm of this work of the Church.
The specific objectives of this international conference are:
To inform people about disparities in the field of health in the world in order to establish a common pathway that will be able to lead to – and foster – a growing contribution to health-care institutions in relation to the most critical subjects of health care at local, national, regional and global levels in order to address disparities in an adequate way.
To know so as to promote theological and spiritual formation, ethical-moral education, and research at the level of pastoral care for all those who are involved in various capacities in Catholic health-care institutions; to provide social and health-care programmes that respect the social doctrine of the Church, the pastoral recommendations of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and the practical socio-political and ecclesial realities of the various geographical areas of the world; and to promote at an international level the sharing of knowledge of various experiences in the field of health-care administration and management, as well as the planning of pastoral care in health care.
To act so as to develop programmes of formation and to create opportunities to spread these programmes to other Catholic health-care institutions and to change the way things are so as provide a remedy – through suitable policies – to the new needs of public health that come from the epochal migratory events that we are now witnessing and from the growing scourge of human trafficking.
This specific response of the new dicastery will be expressed on the occasion of the international conference to which 350 representatives of socio-economic and health-care institutions from all over the world will be invited. 150 Catholic hospitals in five continents of the world will be represented by their managers at this international conference. During the deliberations of this international conference, these first 150 Catholic hospitals will be called upon to create the first nucleus of aggregation which will then work to become an operational global network.
The international conference will illustrate the project for an operational platform of sharing and cooperation of Catholic health-care institutions from a technical point of view, with an exposition of the ways in which this platform can be created, implemented and managed. This project will set in motion activities involving interaction and the exchange of information, know-how, best practices and protocols between Catholic health-care institutions in various geographical and social contexts. It will lead to a platform for daily cooperation and will thus provide a technical and operational support starting with this international conference, going forward with the first results that are obtained to the world congress of 2018, in which all the Catholic health-care institutions of the world will be called to participate.
Expected Results
This project, taken as a whole, represents a contribution of charity, ethics, pastoral care in health and the Church (involving a proposed solution) to addressing the subject of disparities and inequalities in the field of health in the world. The setting in motion and the pursuit of the objectives of study and dialogue between all the Catholic health-care institutions of the world will project the international community of pastoral care in health towards the world congress which will be held in the Vatican in November 2018. This is when the foundations and the central infrastructure will be established for the creation of the most important federative network of cooperation of Catholic health-care institutions.
…………………………..
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
in cooperation with
The International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions
(CIISAC)
organizes
XXXII International Conference
Addressing Global Health Inequalities
16-17-18 November 2017
New Synod Hall – Vatican City
Informing in order to know
Knowing in order to act
Acting in order to change
Changing in order to offer a service to health
That protects the right to life of every person
With an outlook of hope for
A global network response
To the international challenge of inequalities
P R O V I S I O N A L P R O G R A M————————
Thursday 16 November 2017
7.30 Holy Mass
Item 1 on the Agenda
OPENING CEREMONY
9.00 General Chairman of the International Conference
Rev. Msgr. Bruno-Marie Duffé
Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
(the Holy See)
Prayers
Rev. Sr. Carol Keehan, D.C.
President and Chief Executive Officer of
the Catholic Health Association of the United States (USA)
Words of Greeting
His Eminence Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson
Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
(the Holy See)
9.15 Greetings of Dignitaries
His Eminence Cardinal Jean Zerbo
Metropolitan Archbishop of Bamako (Mali)
Beatrice Lorenzin
Minister of Health (Italy)
Dr. Joanne Liu
International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (Canada)
Prof. Vincent Han-Sun Chiang
President of the Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan)
9.50 PROLUSION:
Health-care Inequalities in Global Epidemiology
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director General of the World Health Organisation (Switzerland)
10.20 PROLUSION:
The Mission of Catholic Hospitals and the Role of the CIISAC in Addressing Health Inequalities: which Contribution to the Church’s Universal Mission of Care?
Dr. Anthony R. Tersigni
President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension,
President of the International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions CIISAC (USA)
10.50 OFFICIAL OPENING
OF THE XXXII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Secretary of State to His Holiness (the Holy See)
11.10 Family Photograph – Visit to the Exhibition – Break
11.30 Video Outlining the Programme of the XXXII International Conference
Item 2 on the Agenda
INFORMING IN ORDER TO KNOW
Chairman:
Rev. Prof. Pierre Jean Welsch
International Ecclesiastical Assistant of the International Federation of Catholic Pharmacists, FIPC (Belgium)
11.40 The Apostolate of Mercy in the Magisterium of Pope Francis
His Eminence Cardinal Francesco Montenegro
Metropolitan Archbishop of Agrigento and President of the Bishops’ Commission for Charity and Health (Italy)
12.00 Evangelisation and Pastoral Care in Health: an Inseparable Tandem in the History of Charity of Catholic Health-care Institutions
Rev. Br. Donatus Forkan, O.H.
Former Prior General of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God (Ireland)
12.20 Health for All: Alma Ata Today
Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh
Regional Director, Regional Office for South-East Asia, the World health Organisation (India)
12.40 Caritas Internationalis and the Fight against Health Inequalities
His Eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle
Archbishop of Manila
President of Caritas Internationalis (the Philippines)
13.00 End of the Session
Lunch at the lobby of Paul VI Hall
Item 3 on the Agenda
KNOWING IN ORDER TO ACT
Chairman:
Rev. Fr. Aris Miranda, M.I.
Head of the CTF (the Camillian Task Force), the International Humanitarian Organisation of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick. Third Member of the General Consulta of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick, the Camillians (the Philippines).
14.30 Health Care through Personalised and Compassionate Care for Patients and their Families: Creating Relationships between Families, Patients and Health-care Workers.
Rev. Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau
International Ecclesiastical Assistant of the International Federation of Associations of Catholic Doctors, FIAMC (France)
14.50 Changing the Paradigm of Service to the Sick in Order to Address the Question of Inequalities in the World of Health
Dr. Theresa Cooper
Global Health Care Consulting Leader, Deloitte (USA)
Dr. Asif Dhar
Chief Medical Officer, Deloitte (USA)
Dr. Kaveh Safavi
Global Health Leader, Accenture (USA)
15.20 Access to Primary Health Care and Essential Medical Products
Dr. Sylvie Fonteilles Drabek
Executive Vice-President, Law Director of Medicines for Malaria Venture, MMV (Switzerland)
15.40 The Impact of Pharmaceutical and Technological Innovation on People in Need of Treatment
Dr. Lelio Marmora
Executive Director of UNITAID (Switzerland)
16.00 Discussion
16.30 Break
Item 4 on the Agenda
ACTING IN ORDER TO CHANGE
Chairman:
Rev. Prof. Thomas Nairn, O.F.M.
Director of the Department of Theology and Ethics of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, International Ecclesiastical Assistant of the International Catholic Committee of Nurses and Medico-Social Assistants, CICIAMS (USA)
16.50 The Contemporary Challenges of Hospital Ethical Committees in the Light of the Teaching of the ‘New Charter for Health Care Workers’
Prof. Antonio G. Spagnolo
Director of the Institute of Bioethics and Medical Humanities,
the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, (Italy)
17.10 Problems of Bioethics and Biolaw Raised by Legislation on Prior Instructions Regarding Care and Treatment
Prof. John M. Haas
President of the National Catholic Bioethics Centre in Philadelphia (USA)
17.30 Health Care and Subsidiarity in the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate of
Pope Benedict XVI
His Eminence Cardinal William Jacobus Eijk
Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht (Holland)
17.50 Discussion
18.30 End of the Session
Friday 17 November 2017
Item 5 on the Agenda
CHANGING IN ORDER TO OFFER A SERVICE TO HEALTH THAT PROTECTS THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF EVERY PERSON
Chairman:
Dr. Carlo Messina
General Director and Chief Executive Officer of Intesa Sanpaolo (Italy)
8.30 Prayers
8.40 Experiences of Health-care Management that is Effective and Relevant to Clinical Quality, Safety and Costs in Catholic Hospitals
Dr. Michael Shea
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada (Canada)
9.00 Experiences of Health-care Management in the Organisation of the Coordinated Management of a Number of Health-care Institutions: Strengthening the Operational Appropriateness and the Achievement of Efficiency of the Activities of Catholic Hospitals
Dr. Alessandro Signorini
General Manager of the Foundation Poliambulanza-Brescia (Italy)
9.20 Experiences of Health-care Management Capable of Reconciling Managerial Efficiency with the Needs of Poor Patients
Rev. Dr. Mathew Abraham C.Ss.R.
Director General of the Catholic Health Association of India (India)
9.40 Experiences of Health-care Management Capable of Working in International Contexts with an Interreligious and Intercultural Approach in our Societies
Prof. Tsung Lang Chiu
Director of the Neuro-Medical Scientific Centre of the Buddhist Tzu-Chi General Hospital (Taiwan)
10.00 Experiences of Health-care Management Capable of Involving Missions, Field Hospital, Camps for Refugees from Oppression and Persecution and for War Victims in a Network of Health-care Provision
Dr. Sam Orochi Orach
Executive Secretary of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (Uganda)
10.20 Sponsor
10.40 Break
Item 6 on Agenda
WITH AN OUTLOOK OF HOPE ON THE FUTURE
Chairman:
Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of South Korea
11.00 Education in Health and Healthy Alimentation for the Prevention of Neurodegenerative and Non-communicable Diseases
Dr. Yuki Hayashi
President of the OSATO Research Institute (Japan)
11.20 Formation: ‘Instruments’ for Catholic Health-Care Institutions.
‘Instruments to Measure’ Catholic Identity for Catholic Health-care Institutions
Rev. Don François de Sales Nare
Archdiocese of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
11.40 The Experience of Formation
(participatory session – a guided/facilitated training experience, centred on an in-depth analysis of our personal responsibilities and our commitment(s) to strengthening Catholic ministry in order to achieve our wish to reduce health-care inequalities in the world)
Dr. Anna Paola Santaroni
General Director of the ACISMOM Ospedale San Giovanni Battista and Head of Risk Management of the Federsanità ANCI (Italy)
12.00 Formation versus Education – Analysing the Differences
(interactive session following the previous session on the experience of training, with a highlighting of the fundamental differences between a training experience and an educational experience)
Mrs. Yvonne Morgan
Director of the Catholic Health Association of South Africa (South Africa)
12.20 The Formation Framework
Integrating training in the daily lives of health-care leaders/workers (this session provides to health-care leaders and workers a framework for the integration of their own professional training at the service of those who are most afflicted by inequalities in health care with their own work satisfaction in responding to the needs of those who are most vulnerable)
Dr. Celeste Mueller
Vice President, Spirituality and Theological Formation, Ascension (USA)
12.40 Caring Even When We Cannot Cure
Rev. Sr. Carol Keehan, D.C.
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (USA)
13.00 End of the Session
Lunch at the lobby of Paul VI Hall
Item 7 on the Agenda
WITH AN OUTLOOK OF HOPE ON THE FUTURE
Chairman:
Rev. Br. René Stockman, F.C.
Superior General of the Brothers of Charity of Ghent (Belgium)
14.30 The Economics of Health: the Economic Determinant of the Health of Peoples
Prof. Amartya Sen
Nobel Prize for Economics (India)
14.50 Which Investments in Health Care for the Economics of the Common Good?
Dr. Marco Morganti
Chief Executive Officer of Banca Prossima (Italy)
15.10 The Ethics and Economics of Health: Insurance
Prof. Carl Albert Anderson
Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Professor and Vice-Dean of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in the Section of the United States of America, Washington (USA)
Item 8 on the Agenda
TREATMENT AND RESEARCH
Chairman:
Prof. Shoei-Shen Wang
Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery, Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan)
15.30 Prevention, Treatment and Research in Catholic Hospitals
Prof. Shinya Yamanaka
Director and Professor of the Centre for Stem Cell Research and its Application at the University of Kyoto
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE (Japan)
15.50 A Personal Experience of Treatment and Research in a Catholic
Hospital
Dr. Suzanne Greenwood
Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Health Australia (Australia)
16.10 Break
Chairman:
Dr. Maria Inez Linhares
Vice-President of the Word Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations – FIAMC
Past President of the Federation of Associations of Latin American Doctors, FAMCLAM (Brazil)
16.30 ‘I was sick and you visited me’ (Matthew 25:31-46)
His Eminence Cardinal Mario Zenari
Apostolic Nunzio in Syria (Italy)
16.50 ‘I was in prison and you visited me’ (Matthew 25:31-46)
Dr. Rosa Merola
Psychologist at the Casa Circondariale Rebibbia Maschile, Rome (Italy)
17.10 ‘Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings’ (Psalm 17:8)
Ophthalmic Care for Poor Patients in the World
Dr. Mario Angi
Specialist Medical Doctor and Surgeon in Ophthalmology (Italy)
17.30 Discussion
18.30 End of the Session
Saturday 18 November 2017
Item 9 on the Agenda
THE RESPONSE TO PROBLEMS OF GLOBAL HEATH INEQUALITIES:
THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF CATHOLIC HEALTH-CARE INSTITUTIONS
Chairman:
Rev. Prof. Michele Aramini
Lecturer in Theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan (Italy)
8.30 Prayers
8.40 The project of a network of the International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions (CIISAC): the operational platform for sharing and cooperation. The World Congress of 2018.
Dr. Anthony R. Tersigni
President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension, President of the International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions, CIISAC (USA)
9.40 Recommendations
Rev. Prof. Michele Aramini
Lecturer in Theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, (Italy)
10.00 Conclusions and Best Wishes
His Eminence Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson
Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
(the Holy See)
END OF THE DELIBERATIONS OF THE
XXXII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
11.00 Audience with the Holy Father Francis
………………………………..
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
in cooperation with
The International Confederation of Catholic Health-Care Institutions (CIISAC)
organizes:
XXXII International Conference:
Affrontare le Disparità Globali in materia di Salute
Addressing Global Health Inequalities
16-17-18 November 2017
New Synod Hall – Vatican City
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entro il 30 ottobre 2017,via email:
healthineq@humandevelopment.va
To be returned to the Dicastery,
before the 30 October 2017, by email:
healthineq@humandevelopment.va
