Psoriasis Association Taiwan marks PSD at the Future Trends Forum 2017

On this year’s Patient Solidarity Day, Psoriasis Association Taiwan located in the Western Pacific Region, was not absent in responding to this meaningful day for patients. This year we celebrated Patient Solidarity Day through coming together with other patients’ groups at the “Future Trends Forum 2017- The Past and the Future for sustainable and accessible healthcare systems ” held in Taipei, Taiwan. This is an international forum held across 13 nations in the Pacific-Asia region.  

Participants included ministers of health and welfare, leaders of Healthcare insurance administrations, scholars, doctors, patients’ groups from different countries who discussed and shared various experiences on the issue of sustainable and accessible healthcare systems as well as the challenge with the aging of population.

All conventioneers expressed the importance of patient participation highlighting the need for efficient and influential participation as the key direction which governments, stakeholders, patient groups and scholars need to take.

Also it just so happened, that PAT was elected as the patient representative member of the national health insurance committee. This is a major leap for us as a patient advocacy group since the committee handles, supervises, distributes and decides on what many aspects of the healthcare affairs in Taiwan with a budget of approximately twenty billion USD.

We also shared the relevant information and theme of PSD on all our related social media (websites of associations, FB, and Line etc..) with the aim of strengthening the recognition of PSD in Taiwan .

Considering the issue of efficient and influential participation, patient’ groups should promote their understanding to the related policies, as well as governments should also provide relevant supporting measures and training courses for patients’ groups in their policy.

In the end, we strongly believe that we will come a long way through the associated efforts and global cooperation among patient groups, governments, medical stakeholders, doctors and scholars in the future. We have a dream: patients should be empowered to participate in the healthcare decision-making system on behalf of themselves.