The Gergina Foundation attends the Integrative Oncology Breakfast at the European Parliament

Фондация Гергина присъства на Закуска на тема Интегративна Онкология в Европейския Парламент

The Gergina Foundation took part in the breakfast roundtable on Integrative Oncology at the European Parliament in Brussels on 7.6.2023. The event was part of a process aimed at initiating and deepening the conversation and strategic steering of public policy for improved oncology care in Europe.

The event was organized by the parliamentary inter-party interest group on Integrative Medicine together with a coalition of associations representing the interests of medical and health professionals and organisations from the field of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine.

A number of interventions were delivered on the topic of leading integrative body-based therapies (thermotherapy, ozonotherapy, insulin-potentiated therapy, and others) which are part of the advancing institutionalization of integrative oncology (IO) in Western Europe in particular. The regions of Baden-Württemberg in Germany and Lombardy in Italy are leaders in this respect.

Such advances in practice notwithstanding, there was scarce mention of the psycho-social interventions in cancer care and healing during the roundtable. This is a perspective the founder of the Gergina Foundation contributed in the event, emphasizing the importance of psychological, mental and spiritual aspects of healing.

Looking into the future of policy development and practice, key questions include:

  • To what extent can integrative oncology meaningfully improve the therapeutic care of people diagnosed with cancer?
  • How can we go beyond integrative oncology that is merely serving an ‘orthopedic’ and palliative function, where the remit of biopsychosocial care is to merely improve the management of symptoms and pain of the disease and the conventional oncology therapies?
  • What will it take to develop profoundly transformative approaches that shift the view of cancer, health and illness, and lead to a more holistic model of health overall?
  • What are the conditions that will allow us to evolve toward a truly integral cancer care, where we can look at and utilize both interior (psycho-social and spiritual) and exterior (biological, genetic, environmental) factors in both their causative and curative potentials?
  • What are the genuinely good integrative oncology practices in Europe that can bridge toward integral oncology care – and what would be the sustainable models for making integral oncology the new reality in Europe?

An external article covering the event is available here. You can read our longer social media story and analysis (in Bulgarian) here.