Milan Mishkovikj: Proud to ba at the high-level policy event – Connecting the Dots: Obesity, Digestive Diseases, and Cancers
Milan Mishkovikj, Vice-President, Program Manager, and Volunteer at Hepar Centar Bitola, and Board Director at ELPA, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“It was my enormous privilege, as ELPA Director, to be at the European Parliament in Brussels for the high-level policy event “Connecting the Dots: Obesity, Digestive Diseases, and Cancers”— hosted by UEG – United European Gastroenterology , Prof. Dr. Patrizia Burra, and MEP Romana Jerković.
Together, we addressed some of the most urgent health challenges we face today — obesity and its strong link to digestive diseases and digestive cancers — … ( risks factors). — a growing health emergency across Europe.
I made a last-minute decision to speak directly from the heart — because this is not just policy. This is profoundly human. My own mother is currently battling a terminal disease, and every additional day we get with her is a blessing. This is why prevention, early detection programs, and access to the best care and medicines matter — because we all know someone whose life hangs in the balance.
Do we have the tools? YES — we have the tools, the medications, the diagnostics, biomarkers…— but we need the collective will to make them accessible to everyone. We must remember: behind every statistic is a human story — a family, a future, a life.
Let’s be the people for the people — not patients for patients — together we can make a profound, lifesaving change.
This event brought together passionate stakeholders — policy makers, health care experts, patient advocates, and scientific societies — to collaborate on delivering better care for digestive diseases across Europe. I want to celebrate their immense expertise, compassion, and strong support — from the WHO Regional Office for Europe, EASO, ECPO, Digestive Cancers Europe, EASL — and many more — and especially from MEP Romana Jerković, Alessandra Moretti, Ignazio Marino, Vytenis Andriukaitis, and Tomislav Sokol
Public health experts stressed that policy is a powerful tool to transform our societies and reduce the stigma surrounding obesity — but we must follow through with implementation. We must address prevention, secondary care, and tertiary care together — with dignity, compassion, fairness, and urgency.
Obesity is not a weakness — it’s a challenge. Together, we can make a profound, lifesaving change.”
More posts featuring Milan Mishkovikj.
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Challenging the Status Quo in Colorectal Cancer 2024
December 6-8, 2024
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ESMO 2024 Congress
September 13-17, 2024
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ASCO Annual Meeting
May 30 - June 4, 2024
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Yvonne Award 2024
May 31, 2024
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OncoThon 2024, Online
Feb. 15, 2024
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Global Summit on War & Cancer 2023, Online
Dec. 14-16, 2023