Towards full maturity
Last year's presidential address by my immediate predecessor Paul Van Schil was entitled "A troubled youth", but he added an optimistic quotation from Winston Churchill, saying: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning". After all the troubles that had happened, which greatly endangered the future of our Association, the most important word of all seemed to be "perhaps".
Fortunately, for the first time in the short history of the Association, the complete Board of Directors was elected, giving it a strong mandate. Moreover there was a very strong will to prove that we could handle it and bring it towards full maturity. To prove this I would like to summarize the highlights of last year.
One of the most important tasks of the new Board consisted of giving full support to the Database Committee. Because the data represent our strongest tool in coming negotiations with the Ministry, the Board agreed to finance by our own means this project. This gives us fully independence of the Government with respect towards their claims on data, till a final contract, which respects all our demands, is signed. It must be clear however that the Association can only bear this expenses for a limited time and therefore I urge all centres, who have not done it already, to participate fully and quickly, so we can present complete reports, most wanted by the Government. Luckily we found an independent partner in the Biostatistical Centre of the Limburgs Universtair Centrum for doing the statistical analysis at a reasonable price.
The next equally important item in connection with the database committee is the College of Cardiac Pathology. After the resignation of the four cardiac surgical members and an initial constructive meeting with the representatives of the Ministry of Health, a deafening silence followed. The life of this College came soon to an end, when colleague Créplet first and consequently the other cardiology members resigned. Francis Wellens as president of the professional committee with the approval of the entire Board wrote a letter to the Ministry of Health defining the terms on which we were willing to cooperate again in a new College. Those rules included a separate College of Cardiac Surgery and equality of members in cooperation with the College of Cardiology in matters of common interest. The cardiac surgical database remains property of the BACTS and only aggregate data will be send to the College after control by the Board. Reimbursement for cardiac surgical procedures will fall under the purview of a technical committee. And all ordinary members of the Association elect the members of the College. On July the 17th I received a letter from the Ministry of Health asking me to present a list of candidates for a new College of Cardiac Surgery. The item was and I quote: "Vervanging van ontslagnemende leden in het college voor Cardiale Pathologie met het vooruitzicht op de oprichting van twee verschillende groepen voor cardiologie en cardiale chirurgie". A lot of things still remain unclear, such as the number of vacancies, the tasks, and the relationship with the cardiologists. Till now, we received no reply at all on our questions. While nothing about the College is clearly written out, except the former legal articles, an important task rests on the shoulders of our representatives.
Because in the future European legislation will become more and more important, we decided, after long negotiations with their representatives, to cooperate with the Royal Belgian Society for Surgery. This means that our Association becomes one of the independent sections within the Society. As such we are now recognised as the only representative, scientifically and professionally, for Cardio-thoracic Surgery in Belgium. This is extremely important, because last year the UEMS decided to create not only an independent Section of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, but also a Division of Thoracic Surgery within the Section of Surgery. That this is a potential dangerous situation towards coming European regulations about thoracic surgery is quite obviously. Due to the partnership with the Royal Belgian Society for Surgery we were asked to delegate two of our members to the UEMS. Those members are Francis Wellens for the Section of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and Tony Lerut for the Division of Thoracic Surgery.
Thanks to a very good team of Board members and fruitful and enjoyable meetings, the Association has reached full maturity. It is now solid enough to cope with problems still to come and has, perhaps, a bright future. Like the dictators of the Roman Republic I now return to the fieldwork. It was a great honour for me to serve you all as your fifth president and I am confident that the forthcoming presidents will lead the Association to even greater successes.
Brussel, 16 november 2002