Commission on Health and Social Affairs

Back in Action

It has been a new beginning for the Commission since Elbląg has taken the lead over the works in 2010.

Wojciech Drozd, Chairman of the Commission on Health and Social Affairs, City of Elblag.

After publishing the Letter of Intent this early spring the Commission managed to gain some initial interest mainly from Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish members of the UBC. Simultaneously, the Commission also entered into relations with two strong organizations.

One of them is Northern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being, the intergovernmental body which focuses on increasing coherence between the countries in the Northern Dimension area (most of them from the Baltic Sea Region), narrowing socio-economic disparities, and improving quality of life of its inhabitants. Partnership with NDPHS, hopefully, will result in cooperation in some projects related to children obesity and life-style related non-communicable diseases prevention.

Another organization the Commission would like to cooperate with is the Baltic Region Healthy Cities Association in Turku, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Health in the Baltic Region, whose overarching issues such as health equity and health in all policies are well inline with our concerns.

And, in orderto balance health and social activities the Commission has already started preparation of workshop related to the ageing society in the context of demographic challenge for the Baltic cities. This event is planned during the next UBC General Conference in Liepāja in October.

As the event preceding this workshop, it is intended to organize an open meeting of Commission on Health and Social Affairs in Elbląg in September. It will be devoted to the senior citizens' issues, similarities and differences in problems they face, and help they require from local authorities. The question how the municipalities deal with it is to be discussed. This may be a good possibility of sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences and distinguishing best practices for all engaged in the matter of health and social care. Conclusions drawn from this meeting may also be a good contribution to further discussions in Liepāja.

The time is running, so concurrently to the continued recruitment of the Commission members, the consecutive consultations bearing in mind topics mentioned above will start in the nearest future. Health and social problems are common and affect all inhabitants of the Baltic Sea Region so Elbląg Chairmanship is determined to be successful.