World Health Organization : The mandate of a specialized agency of the United Nations

Appendix 2

WHO and Lombardy Region Cooperation Plan

An example of the various activities that the WHO undertakes within its broad mandate is a cooperation project with the Lombardy Region relating to Complementary Medicine (CM).
The Lombardy Region has developed a strong interest in CM in the recent years. The citizens of one of the wealthiest and most forefront regions in Italy have increasingly entered in contact with this kind of medicine, either because fuelled by concern about the adverse effects of chemical drugs, or because attracted by the approach to the patient proposed by this new way of healing.
Taking into account that use of CM is growing and that much of the Region’s population favours use of CM, the Lombardy Region has started an activity correlated to CM and, in particular, is trying to regulate such a development.

The main steps in such an activity have been the following:

  1. February 2000: the Lombardy Region adopts the deliberation n. VI/48041 dated 04.02.00. In this document, the Region asks medical doctors and providers of CM to propose observational studies in order to assess the effects of these therapies on specific pathologies. The results of such a campaign have been extremely interesting. As a consequence, the Region has been ready to issue a new deliberation to broaden the objectives of the first one, and to guarantee the first investment to support experimentation, research and clinical studies of the therapies which have been evaluated as the most therapeutically effective during the observational phase.
  2. March 2002: the Lombardy Region includes CM in the Regional Socio-Sanitary Plan 2002-2004 among the innovative projects. In particular, the document points out certain criteria to begin an integration with the ‘Conventional Medicine’.

These criteria are:

  • Freedom of the citizens to choose the treatment they feel more comfortable with;
  • Safe treatment for the citizens who must be able to trust professional providers of CM;
  • Professionalism of the providers of CM;
  • Rational use of CM by consumers who must be correctly informed and educated about these therapies.
  1. June 2003: considering the positive outcomes of the observational studies and the development of CM, the Lombardy Region, represented by the Directorate-General of Health and the Directorate-General of Family and Social Solidarity, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Traditional Medicine Unit/Essential Drugs and Medicine Department/Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals Cluster in July 2003. This agreement is object of the deliberation n. VII/13235 dated 9.06.03.

The collaboration project is quadrennial (2003-2007), and its aimed at contributing to the achievement of WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy (2002-2005) objectives: to integrate CM with national health care systems, as appropriate; to promote the safety, efficacy and quality of CM by expanding the CM knowledge base; to increase the availability and affordability of CM, as appropriate; and to promote therapeutically sound use of appropriate CM by both providers and consumers.

It is composed of three different pathways:

  1. Project 1: promoting rational use of CM by consumers;
  2. Project 2: Promoting good practice of CM therapies by CM providers;
  3. Project 3: Promoting the quality and safety of herbal medicine products, including homeopathy products.

The first event within this project is the WHO Consultation for “Promoting Appropriate Use of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine by Consumers”. International and Italian experts will meet in Milan from 1 December 2003 to 3 December 2003 in order to finalize the guidelines concerning the rational use of CM by consumers.
Thanks to this cooperation plan, the Lombardy Region aims at guaranteeing to its citizens the highest level of quality, safety and effectiveness regarding the use of CM. Moreover, the Region of Lombardy adopts an extremely high relevance at the international level. Lombardy has been the first regional entity in Italy, and in Europe, to start a collaboration with the WHO concerning the improvement of CM. Furthermore, Lombardy has opened a dialogue with different and foreign healing traditions, mainly from developing countries, that could make the Region become a subject of international cooperation.
After all, as Dr Brundtland always said, the global health agenda has become so broad and vast that a single actor cannot be able to manage being responsive and effective, if not in collaboration with other international and national subjects. Nowadays, more than ever, it is necessary ‘to reach out the others’. The cooperation project between WHO and Lombardy Region is just one of the several examples speaking of international partnerships for health.

 

 

 
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Edited by Aldo Campana,