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HEALTH

Berlin ‘Ebola case’ is false alarm

Update: Emergency responders said on Tuesday morning that a man tested for Ebola was not in fact infected with the virus.

Published: 18 November 2014 08:40 CET
Updated: 18 November 2014 10:07 CET
Berlin 'Ebola case' is false alarm
Photo: DPA

Tagesspiegel reported that a fire service spokesman confirmed the negative test results from the Tropical Medicine Institute of the Virchow Clinic.

Emergency services had been deployed to the capital's Neukölln district on Monday night after a man showed symptoms of the Ebola virus.

The spokesman said that the man is an interpreter who has worked with refugees from Sierra Leone.

Police and fire services with full isolation gear were called to the scene just before 11 pm on Monday.

The street was closed off for around four hours while the man was loaded into an ambulance and the emergency services decontaminated the people who had come into contact with him.

His two flatmates were placed into quarantine and prevented from leaving the apartment.

Test results revealing whether the man is really suffering from the virus are expected later on Tuesday.

SEE ALSO: 'There's no risk of Ebola spreading in Europe'

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HEALTH

When can doctors in Denmark refuse to continue treating patients?

General Practitioners in Denmark have the right to break off a patient-doctor relationship in specific circumstances.

Published: 1 August 2024 16:35 CEST
When can doctors in Denmark refuse to continue treating patients?

Although doctors in Denmark have the right to decide not to continue treating a patient – requiring them to find a new GP – the circumstances in which this can happen are limited, and must be approved by health authorities.

The frequency in which the circumstances arise is also low. A doctor decided to no longer receive a patient on 375 occasions in 2016, according to the medical professionals’ journal Ugeskrift for Læger. The following year, newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported the figure at 458.

There are two main categories of circumstances in which a doctor can choose to take this step. The first is in instances of violent or threatening behaviour from the patient towards the doctor. 

The second (and most common) is when the doctor considers the relationship to have deteriorated to the extent that confidence has broken down, according to Ugeskrift for Læger.

It should be noted that patients are not bound by any restrictions in this regard, and can decide to change their GP without having to give any justification.

A patient also has the right to appeal against a doctor’s decision to ask them to find a new GP. This is done by appealing to the local health authority, called a Region in the Danish health system.

In such cases, a board at the regional health authority will assess the claim and if it finds in favour of the patient may order the doctor to attempt to repair the relationship.

Doctors cannot end a relationship with a patient purely because a patient has made a complaint about them to health authorities. This is because patients should have the option of making complaints without fear of consequences for their future treatment. 

However, if this is accompanied by the conclusion on the doctor’s part that there is no longer confidence in them on the part of the patient, they can remove the patient from their list.

The right to no longer see patients in the circumstances detailed above is provided by doctors’ collective bargaining agreements, the working conditions agreed on between trade unions and employer confederations under the Danish labour market system.

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