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Role of the Board
IAPO's strategy and direction is supervised by the Governing Board. This Board comprises of elected representatives from our full and associate member organizations.
Many of our Governing Board are patients themselves or are patient representatives such as a parent or carer. All have living and working relationships with patients through their organizations.
Androulla Eleftheriou, Executive Director, Thalassaemia International Federation
[On being involved in patient advocacy] In fact, a very dear example to my heart was the loss of the son of Mr Panos Englezos, who is TIF’s President, in 1993. George Englezos was one of my patients when I was the Head of the Virus Reference Centre of the Cyprus Ministry of Health, and he had died due to a severe ear infection, which remained undiagnosed, as there was difficulty in diagnosing between the side-effects of the drugs he was taking and the actual microbial ear infection. This journey, which I was involved in and really marked my life, was the tipping point for me.
Read the full interview with Androulla and her biography here.
Andrew Spiegel, Executive Director, Global Colon Cancer Association
[On challenges facing patients today] I think in the US, and throughout the world, there are increased pressures on governments, health systems and payors to reduce healthcare costs. While everyone is interested in reducing costs, that cannot be at the expense of the patient's health. The patient must remain at the forefront of all healthcare policy decisions and the advocacy community is more important now than ever to ensure that occurs.
Read the full interview with Andrew and his biography here.
