HEALTH AND SOCIAL CAMPAIGNERS' NETWORK INTERNATIONAL
runs a global service called

BROADCASTING PATIENTS

THIS FREE SERVICE OFFERS PATIENT, DISABILITY, AND CARER ORGANISATIONS GREATER MEDIA EXPOSURE

The system works as follows:

* Whenever a journalist or TV/radio broadcaster wishes to gain the opinion of health advocates on a specific health or disease-related issue,

* HSCNetwork will provide the journalist with contact details of the most appropriate health advocacy organisation/s in the HSCNetwork databank
(which currently stands at 60,000-plus groups worldwide)

The BROADCASTING PATIENTS service is free to all participants - whether journalists or health advocates.

How Broadcasting Patients Works:

An example from mid-2007

The background:
In early April 2007, Romania's Public Health Ministry, working with the country's Health Insurance National Agency (the health insurance system in Romania is state-run and centralised) issued new regulations to Romania's national health programmes. The regulations apparently deprived many cancer patients from all over Romania of their regular monthly treatment.

Ms Cezar Irimia, Co-Chair of the Asociatia Bolnavilor de Cancer [Federation of Cancer Patient Associations] emailed this information to many people around the world. She added that her organisation had sent a protest letter to the two health institutions involved, and had not received any reply.

PatientView action:
PatientView believed that the case of the Romanian cancer patients needed to reach the maximum-possible audience, and contacted Jeremy Laurance, health editor of the UK newspaper The Independent . He wrote an article on the subject, which appeared in the newspaper on May 7th 2007. To read the text of The Independent article, click here.

Results:
The article helped to galvanise the Romanian press into offering publicity and support for the cause of the Romanian cancer patients. To read Ms Irimia's email reporting the results of the The Independent article, click here.

The service is provided independently by HSCNetwork, and is not funded by any outside bodies (including government departments, academic institutions, think tanks, funds or foundations, pharmaceutical companies, or other industry organisations)

Members of HSCNetwork interested in being placed on the register of groups participating in Broadcasting Patients should contact Louise Oatham on info@patient-view.com

Subscribers to HSCNews who are planning media events will also be entitled to access this service.

PatientView, Woodhouse Place, Upper Woodhouse, Knighton, Powys, LD7 1NG, Wales
Tel: 0044-(0)1547-520-965 · E-mail: info@patient-view.com
Registered in England No 3944382
Registered office: Millennium Bridge House, 2 Lambeth Hill, London, EC4 4AJ, UK