It’s with great sadness that the European Ostomy Association EOA announces that Prof. Dr. Gerhard Englert, founder of EOA, passed away on 27 May 2026 as a result of a surgery, aged 87.
From 1975 to 2012, Gerhard Englert, an ileostomate since 1971, served as chairman of Deutsche ILCO. Under his leadership, Deutsche ILCO was a co-founder of the International Ostomy Association IOA as early as 1975. Gerhard Englert played an active role in the IOA from the very beginning: from 1975 to 1985 as a member of the Executive Committee, then as Treasurer until 1991, and from 1991 to 1994 as President. It was during his presidency that the idea of a “World Ostomy Day” was developed, which was held worldwide for the first time in 1993. Since then, a further 10 World Ostomy Days have taken place every three years, each with a different theme.
During Gerhard Englert’s time as IOA President, the IOA Executive Board and the member associations drafted the “Charter of Rights for Ostomates”, which was also published in 1993. With a few additions, it continues to serve as a guiding principle for health and social policy activities within the member organisations to this day. The Charter sets out a suitable means of comparing how much of this has already been achieved in one’s own country and highlights where there is a need for action.
As early as before 1990, Gerhard Englert had initiated cross-border meetings with neighbouring German- speaking stoma organisations from Austria and Switzerland. In 1979, he organised the first European regional meeting, which was also the first meeting of European associations under the umbrella of the IOA.
In 1990, he was again the driving force behind the founding of the European Ostomy Association (EOA) in Budapest, Hungary, serving as its founding president from 1990 to 1992.
The concerns of ostomates – their ability to live independently and free from discrimination – were the driving force behind his extraordinary commitment. Operated at a time when reliable stoma care was still very much lacking, he knew that simply helping individual ostomates was not enough. To bring about structural change, the only way forward is to find allies in other organisations, in politics and in the healthcare sector, with whom one can work together to bring about improvements.
In 2012, he received a special honour in recognition of all his services to the EOA and his international work for ostomates’ rights: the EOA Executive Board established a fund named after him, ‘The Professor Dr Gerhard Englert Fund’.
We, as the EOA EC, are very saddened by his unexpected death. We feel for his family, in particular for his wife Helga who had supported him and his work all his life. We owe him so much. He was a visionary in the truest sense of the word, yet reliable and approachable. It was always a pleasure and an enrichment to meet him. He will be greatly missed.
