To view footage from “Thank you, Doctor” campaign from Vatican City, follow link here.
To read and sign the Declaration, https://thankyoudoctor.org/thank-you-doctor/declaration/
With the support of Pope Francis, SOMOS Community Care and the Pontifical Academy for Life, presented the declaration, “Thank you, Doctor” to acknowledge the role of the primary-care physician and highlight their essential connection with the patient in Vatican City on November 16th. The campaign aims to highlight and value the role of the family doctor by calling on all social and political agents to refocus our health systems on the relationship between the doctor and the patient.
The healthcare system crisis in most countries often has a common cause: the lack of recognition of the primary care physician, also known as the family doctor. To tackle this challenge, representatives from the health sector, civil society, and religious communities have united to draft the “Rediscover the Family Doctor” Declaration—a call to governments, public institutions, and health systems to reestablish the central role of the primary doctor.
In his presentation, Dr. Ramón Tallaj, Chairman of SOMOS, stated that “this declaration recognizes the role played every day, on five continents, by millions of doctors who not only constitute the front line of our health systems but sometimes go beyond, becoming the good Samaritans of every person.”
In his speech from the Teutonic cemetery hall of the Vatican, Tallaj asserted that “the doctor assists and accompanies the most vulnerable. A world without doctors would be dehumanized as they transcend ideologies and divisions because they care for human beings and defend their dignity,” he concluded.
In the past, Pope Francis has lamented that ‘the figure of the family doctor has almost disappeared,’ with the risk that ‘the good quality of territorial health services is neglected; or that these are so bureaucratized and computerized, that the elderly or poorly educated people are effectively excluded or marginalized.'”
Speaking at the press conference, Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, stated “that the relationship between doctor and patient is the heart of medicine and cannot be reduced to a prescription or even very sophisticated technologies. He emphasized that men and women are never just their illnesses. This relationship is part of the very essence of medicine. The limit that should never be exceeded is to take care of each other, and this has to do with the doctor-patient relationship.”
This campaign intends to encourage as many people as possible to sign this declaration, whether individuals or groups, foundations, hospitals, associations, communities, and all religious denominations.
Mario Paredes, CEO of SOMOS affirmed that “without family doctors, so many people in the world could not survive. The goal of this campaign is to thank the primary care doctor for their role, their existence, their mission, and their value,” Paredes said, also highlighting that “the role of the primary care doctor in the health system and society is essential for four reasons; the point of access to the health system, provide “complete and continuous care, prevention and education and “efficiency and cost reduction,” Paredes concluded.
About SOMOS Community Care:
SOMOS Community Care (SOMOS), is New York’s only provider-led, nonprofit, community-based integrated social care network. It is comprised of over 2,500 network providers responsible for reaching and delivering culturally competent care to over 1 Million Medicaid lives citywide. www.somoscommunitycare.org
