The Portuguese Oncology Institute (IPO) in Porto will create the Oncology Patient Advisory Council “later this year” to give users a voice and contribute to health literacy in Portugal, it was announced today.
“Our concern is to facilitate and promote patient empowerment and participation in shaping the care we offer. To this end, we have announced our intention to create the Oncology Patient Advisory Council later this year,” said the institution’s president, Júlio Oliveira.
The announcement was made during the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the IPO do Porto, a session chaired by the Secretary of State for Health, Ana Margarida Pinheiro Povo.
“We will try to continue to improve the quality and offer of services to users and their families,” said Júlio Oliveira, who earlier, in an interview with the Lusa news agency, justified his commitment to figures such as the Oncology Patient Advisory Council or the User Ombudsman with the desire to create “an increasingly humanized institution”.
“Humanization is something that is constant and not fashionable. It’s a cornerstone of everything that’s done here at IPO do Porto,” he said.
Convinced that “it is necessary and important for health literacy to be promoted in Portugal”, the president of the IPO do Porto regretted that there is “a tendency, especially in southern Europe, to have a paternalistic attitude towards the patient”.
“But the patient is not, and cannot be, the poor thing. The patient is a citizen who, at a certain moment, had the misfortune to suffer from a pathology. This model of citizen participation and greater involvement in decision-making processes that affect their lives is more than developed in northern European countries,” he told Lusa.
As for the Patient Ombudsman, Júlio Oliveira said that IPO do Porto “is in the process of collecting applications from patient associations”.
“We believe that we should give as much voice as possible to the needs of patients and their families (…). We want to give some institutionality to those demands, opinions, suggestions, what is the patient’s own vision,” he summarized.
Today, Júlio Oliveira also announced the launch of the Dr. José Guimarães do Santos Research Grants, a tribute to the founder and mentor of this institution’s organizational culture.
The value associated with this project is 250,000 euros.