Patient Solidarity Day 2018: Whats ahead

Every year since 2011, patient advocates globally have marked the start of December with Patient Solidarity Day and this year is no different. The campaign, whose theme is 'Safe Medication and Healthcare for All' will be marked on 7th December 2018.

Prominent organizations across the world will join forces to raise awareness and call for renewed efforts to tackle the proliferation of poor quality medicines & medical healthcare. These important, but often neglected public health problems, threaten the lives of millions both in low-and-middle-income and high-income countries.

Already, organizations have planned out activitiies in line with Patient Solidarity Day. To give you feel of what activities are already in place and encourage you to get involved, please see the list of events planned so far.

1. Fight the Fakes week which will take place from 3-9 December 2018. Organized by the Fight the Fakes campaign, this activity aims to increase awareness within the partner organisations and networks and have staff join in the fight against fake medicines.
2. 3rd International Conference on Patient Safety. Organized by Riphah Institute of Healthcare Improvement & Safety and  Riphah International University, the conference has a mission of providing safe and quality health services to all patients in Pakistan.
3. 50th Anniversary of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM) celebration on the 5th November 2018 in Geneva. Organized buy the the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring, this event will be a celebration of the major milestones in Global Health and Pharmacovigilance highlighting some of the success stories recorded.

  Get involved!

We invite you to get involved in advocating for safe medicines and healthcare for all. We have put together examples of activities to give you some inspiration. These range from community engagement workshops, leafleting sessions, advocacy training workshops, creating opportunities for engaging with key decision-makers in healthcare.

Tools for this year’s PSD campaign are now available for everyone to download from the Patient Solidarity Day webpage. These tools are designed to help everyone get involved in the campaign, whether online (e.g. on social media) or offline (e.g. by organising an event) as they can be adapted to fit different contexts.

Check out the PSD resources here.