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Spain calls on army convoys to send out Covid-19 vaccine and food supplies

The Spanish government will on Monday begin sending convoys carrying the COVID-19 vaccine and food supplies to reach areas cut off by Storm Filomena.

Published: 11 January 2021 10:07 CET
Spain calls on army convoys to send out Covid-19 vaccine and food supplies
Photo: AFP

The weekend saw the heaviest snowfall for half a century with over 600 roads cut off in the storm and hundreds stranded in their vehicles overnight.

But although the snowfall itself has stopped across much of Spain, forecasters warned of dangerous conditions in the coming days, with temperatures expected to plummet to minus 10ºC (14º F).

“We are committed to guarantee the supply of health, vaccines and food. Corridors have been opened to deliver the goods,” transport minister, Jose Luis Abalos, announced on Sunday.

The transport, storage and distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was a key priority, he said.

Priority was given over the weekend to clearing access to hospitals with volunteers joining emergency services and Military Emergency Unit (UME) to make them accessible.

Some healthcare staff made long journeys through the snow to reach work, prompting offers from 4X4 owners to drive them to work as well as organizing an SOS service to help those trapped.

“Not all heroes wear capes,” proclaimed El Confidencial newspaper, “Some drive 4X4s and have snow chains”.

Drivers volunteered to step in where ambulances could not and drive pregnant women to hospital, take critical patients to A and help those stranded on motorways get home.

One doctor trekked 17km through the snow just to get to work at a hospital in Madrid, a journey he described in a video posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile these two nurses, Paco and Monica left the house at 4.30am on Saturday morning to walk 22km through the snow for their shift at Madrid’s Hospital 12 de Octubre.

Another nurse made the 5km journey on foot in heavy snow from Boadilla del Monte, a town to the west of Madrid to Hospital Puerta del Hierro because roads were impassable.

While a nurse identified only as Teresa, was captured on film walking through deep snow on her way home after a shift at Gregorio Marañón Hospital.

 

 

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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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