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Patients' rights association, Patientevertriedung, urges health stakeholders to return to negotiating table

Luxembourg's healthcare sector is heading towards a new regulatory framework after negotiations between doctors and the National Health Fund (CNS) failed to produce a new convention.

It had been clear from the start that each party's position had hardened. What matters now, said Georges Clees, communications officer at patient advocacy group Patientevertriedung, is a firm assurance that patients will not face any deterioration in service. Clees spoke to RTL on Friday morning, discussing the standoff between the Luxembourg Association of Doctors and Dentists (AMMD) and the National Health Fund (CNS).

From November onwards, tariffs and reimbursements in the healthcare sector will be governed by Grand Ducal regulations, since no agreement has been reached on a new convention. The two sides have very different interests, but the Patientevertriedung is still hoping that further discussions and negotiations will take place.

Addressing concerns about legal certainty, Clees explained that the patient advocacy group had initially had doubts, but those had been resolved after consulting legal experts and receiving additional assurances from the ministry. Despite the impasse, he emphasised, there is currently no reason for patients to fear disruption in healthcare or reimbursement.

Clees agreed with the country's hospital doctors that clarity is needed on how the sector should evolve over the next 10 to 20 years. To get there, he argued, concrete figures are needed, and those have been missing for some time. That, in his view, is why the new Health Observatory, with clear figures and projections, is so important.

Also today

• A prison guard at Uerschterhaff has been hospitalised after being attacked by an inmate with a pan today.
• Annual inflation remained unchanged for a third consecutive month in August.
• Luxembourger, Charel Becker, has deployed to Kathmandu with the charity Welthungerhilfe to coordinate emergency flood relief in Nepal.
• Workers were left reeling after VW cuts open door to factory closures.
• Members of the Swiss far-right Junge Tat movement have gone on trial today in Zurich.
• Voting in the US midterm elections effectively began today as North Carolina became the first state to send out mail ballots.

On air

Joe Lister was in to speak to Sam and Meredith this morning about the upcoming Kick Cancer Into Touch charity tournament taking place in Cessange, 27th September.

Figure of the day

400 women have been saved thanks to Luxembourg financial support.

• Luxembourg stands for multilateralism. That was the message at a press conference on Thursday afternoon featuring Democratic Party (DP) Foreign and Cooperation Minister Xavier Bettel and Diene Keita, director of the United Nations Population Fund. The agency works in 150 countries and territories around the world on health, access to contraception, and against gender-based violence.
• She invited the audience to consider that the agency had been able to save the lives of 400 women who might otherwise have died just because they lacked access to the services provided by its midwives and counsellors in their communities. Almost 500,000 people had been reached on issues linked to sexual and reproductive health, she said, and most of them were young people, young men and young women who wanted to ask questions and to make use of certain services to protect themselves and give themselves a more decent life. Thanks to Luxembourg's support, close to 850,000 people had also been able to choose contraception.
  

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