Immediate Past President of the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME), BELGIUM

Dr Jacques de Haller is immediate Past President of the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME). Born in 1952, he graduated from the Geneva University Faculty of Medicine in 1978 and specialised in General Medicine/Family Medicine (MD in 1983). Dr de Haller worked as a general practitioner in Geneva for 21 years (1983-2004).

He became President of the Swiss Association of General Practitioners in 2000 and was elected President of the Swiss National Medical Association (FMH) in 2004. During his 8-year mandate, he developed the association – representing 97% of the Swiss doctors – into becoming one of the major political lobbies in Switzerland.

At the head of both FMH and CPME, beyond all the current topics of health politics, he puts a specific stress on the role of doctors in society – as actors in the quality and accessibility of healthcare, of course, but also in the quality of life of the whole population. The preservation of a free and creative patient-doctor relationship, preserved from undue state or insurance intervention, is another accent of his political action.