History repeats itself and if we don’t learn the right lessons, we risk repeating it. Overlapping the war and the pandemic was a bad idea a century ago. It is still now when the Omicron wave has not yet ended in Europe and when the war in Ukraine has begun.
If we have not learned the lessons of history, can we learn to live with SARS-CoV-2 and, worse, can we learn with the perspective of a long-term war?
Beyond the questions, more or less rhetorical, are the people. With their dramas, delusions and dreams. Many, interrupted by an invisible enemy or by one as obvious as possible.
We start the ReThink Health project having in mind the citizens and the right to high-level health and care. We have in our hearts and minds people who are suffering now, in Ukraine, as well people who have suffered (in the CEE more than in other EU MS) because of the pandemic, but as well people who, because of the dysfunctions of public health systems, have been suffering in silence for decades with chronic diseases in Kyiv, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia or Bucharest.
People’s chance at life or a higher quality of life should not depend on the postal code.
We are active and we have developed in-depth analysis and knowledge on the East-West inequalities, as we have a long history of over a decade of understanding how health innovations can reduce inequalities.
Innovation as a cohesive factor in the EU is our headline at the Centre for Innovation in Medicine. And the premise is to build forward better.