Brussels, 15 March 2022
Health ministers met for an informal video conference to agree on a coordinated and inclusive EU response to the health consequences of the war in Ukraine.
The unprecedented reception of refugees and displaced persons, the medical evacuation and the care of war-wounded persons and people suffering from chronic diseases will have a significant impact on the member states, in particular on their health systems and, in the first instance, on the countries bordering Ukraine.
Health ministers recalled the right of access to healthcare guaranteed by the Temporary Protection Directive. Full implementation of these rights is all the more important for these people given the effects of war on their mental and physical health. Some of them have been injured or suffer from chronic or severe diseases.
Ministers referred to actions in the different countries by public authorities, health institutions, health professionals and organised civil society that will allow for emergency or longer-term responses. It is in this context that health ministers have considered how to ensure the medical care of these people and to prepare, from today, for responses to this unprecedented health and human challenge.
Ministers welcomed the establishment of the EU solidarity mechanism to facilitate medical evacuations of persons in need of specialised hospital treatment and care. Ministers also agreed in particular on the need to give priority to sick children in the medical evacuation of refugees by ensuring that they remain surrounded by their families, to update in real time the reception capacities for acute care of refugees in order to ensure continuity of care, to consider the means of transport of persons requiring medical evacuation in order to meet needs based on the scale of the situation and to consider the deployment of temporary hospitals in Poland to facilitate the evacuation of patients according to their pathologies.
Europe stands by the millions of Ukrainian refugees. The European Union has guaranteed them a right of access to healthcare. We need to coordinate our actions and set up operations to treat, in particular, chronic and seriously ill people, who can count on our solidarity. But EU member states will also support each other to ensure that health systems can cope with these challenges. – Olivier Véran, French Minister for Solidarity and Health
At the heart of the discussion was the medical treatment of refugees suffering from chronic and acute illnesses in border states or member states hosting refugees and people displaced by war. Ministers also discussed resilience of the health systems of all EU member states, already significantly hit by the Covid-19 crisis and now facing a new – and potentially longer lasting – health crisis.
- Ukraine: Council unanimously introduces temporary protection for persons fleeing the war (press release, 4 March 2022)
- EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (background information)
Meeting information
- Meeting n°VC-EPSCO-22-03-15
- Video conference
- 15 March 2022
Outcome documents