International Alliance of Patient Organisations

06 / 05 / 2009

Albert van der Zeijdenis a former chair of the International Alliance of Patient Organisations (IAPO). He has been involved in patient organisations since he was diagnosed with Chrohn’s disease in the late 1970’s.

He was co-founder of the Dutch Crohns’ and Ulcerative Colitis Association. To be able to influence Dutch health policy, Albert became active in the Dutch Council of the Chronically Ill and the Handicapped (CG-Raad). His ambition to change not only Dutch health policy for patients, but also to make a strong patient voice in the international context, led him first to be involved in the early stages of many European patients’ initiatives, including Eurordis in 1995, and later to the founding of IAPO in 1999, and more recently European Patient's Forum (EPF). Since 1999, IAPO set out to influence health policy in order to achieve patient centred health care throughout the world. IAPO’s policy is to pick up those topics that other organisations aren’t able to pursue, thus not competing for the same topic as other patient organisations in the World. At this moment in time IAPO has 215 members: patient organisations that are active all over the World. IAPO works with other organisations on topics they share e.g. with Eurordis for rare diseases, and with the EPF for cross-boarder health care within the EU.

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