Thursday August 19th German Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) and Norwegian Minister of health Bent Høie (Høyre) take to the stage at the interparliamentary conference at World Pride in Copenhagen to participate in a panel on “Equal access and better health care for the LGBTIQ community”. Danish member of the European Parliament Pernille Weiss (Konservative/EPP) who also is a nurse by training will be the third panelist. The panel which also will be sent digitally is organized by the European Centre-Right LGBT+ Alliance the network gathering LGBT+ groups from EPP parties across Europe.
The panel and seminar is a joint initiative of Åpne Høyre (Open Conservatives) and LSU (Lesbians and Gays in the Union) the Norwegian and German member organisations of the European Centre-Right LGBT+ Alliance. The president of the Alliance Fredrik Saweståhl from Moderaterna in Sweden will moderate the event.
Leader of Åpne Høyre and vice president of the European Center Right LGBT + Alliance Helge Ytterøy L’orange motivates the seminar:
- LGBT + health issues are an important topic, and we want to raise awareness on the European and international arena to strengthen knowledge about positive experiences made in different countries. Norway has come a long way in many areas. We have a well-developed health care system. A lot of work has been done to improve school health services and services related to mental health in recent years. In addition, we have a number of measures aimed directly at the LGBT+ community. We believe it is important that we contribute our experiences during World Pride, and also learn about work in other countries and at European level.
The panel will be extremely well qualified to discuss the topic as both the Minister of Health have long experience of working politically with these issues and are in fact also gay, and MEP Pernille Weiss is a trained nurse that specializes in health research.
The intention of the panel is to provide inspiration and a basis for improvements in several countries. It also aims to highlight what can and possibly should be done by the EU when it comes to the issues of health in the LGBT+ community.
Alexander Vogt, Federal Chairman of the Lesbians and Gays in the Union (LSU) of the Christian-Democratic Party (CDU) in Germany and member of the board of the Alliance emphasizes:
- The topic of LGBT+ health is very important to the LSU. Therefore, we are happy and excited about impulses and are curious about the experiences in other European countries. In particular, the issue of trans* health is currently at the top of our agenda, but we are also fundamentally concerned with the structural barriers to access in the health care system and hurdles in the use of health care services that LGBT+ people continue to face in many European countries.
Information/Links:
More information about the European Centre-Right LGBT+ Alliance https://lgbtalliance.eu/
World Pride 2021 in Copenhagen and Malmö the largest LGBTIQ event in 2021 globally https://copenhagen2021.com/
World Pride program in the seminar/webinar https://copenhagen2021.com/human-rights/human-rights-conference/sphere-sessions/equal-access-and-better-health-care-for-the-lgbtiq-community/
For link to streaming at ZOOM see this event where the ZOOM link will be provided before the webinar (the webinar starts 12:00 CET on August 19th) https://www.facebook.com/events/1998223677001391/?ref=newsfeed
Press contact:
Fredrik Saweståhl, president
+46 793 361412
presidency@lgbtalliance.eu
fredrik.sawestahl@moderaterna.se
