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HEALTH

Norway imports blood amid donor shortfall

With blood donors thin on the ground, Norway currently has little option but to import blood from elsewhere in Europe.

Published: 29 June 2012 17:39 CEST
Norway imports blood amid donor shortfall
Photo: Scanpix (File)

Across the continent, only Estonia has fewer blood donors per head of population than Norway, Aftenposten reports.

“The World Health Organisation and the Red Cross strongly recommend that every country ensures it has enough volunteer, unpaid blood donors to meet its own needs,” Professor Hans Erik Heier of Blodbanken told the newspaper.

“Blood should be donated to help other people, not to earn money. Twenty percent of the world’s population uses 80 percent of the blood on the market. If we’re a burden, others will get less,” he added.

According to Heier, around 50,000 patients need blood transfusions every year. Norway is home to 95,000 donors, but 30,000 more are needed to meet demand, he said.

Over the last four years, the donor shortfall has forced Norwegian blood banks to buy blood plasma products from abroad.

Norway is now in talks with other countries about securing a supply of blood for the coming years.

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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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