A brand new Greenlandic healthcare settlement goals to facilitate entry to healthcare providers in Denmark for Greenland’s sufferers. The newest mutual framework settlement got here after the Danish well being minister’s current go to to Greenland, meant to strengthen cooperation within the well being sector.
Thousands of Greenlandic Inuit girls will now be capable of search compensation for being pressured to make use of intrauterine gadgets for contraception within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies – however not till late subsequent 12 months.
The deal was not too long ago signed by Greenland’s well being minister, Anna Wangenheim, and Danish well being minister, Sophie Løhde (Renew).
Wangenheim harassed the alternatives to “strengthen staffing in our healthcare system, whereas on the similar time bettering the expertise for Greenlandic sufferers who must obtain specialist remedy in Denmark.”
Market dimension, limiting
Currently, healthcare providers range broadly throughout Greenland, a self-governing a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, going through distinctive challenges, notably as a consequence of its huge, ice-covered territory.
Access to prescription medicines is proscribed; vacationers are suggested to carry their very own. As Bodil Jensen, a communication advisor on the Greenlandic Health Service, defined to Euractiv, Greenland is a small market with a inhabitants of 56,000 folks and difficult geographic situations.
According to a report from the Greenlandic Health Councils, the nation presently has 56 smaller well being stations, 11 well being centres, 4 regional hospitals and a nationwide hospital, the Queen Ingrid’s Hospital in Nuuk. Residents principally use a telemedicine app.
Specialised well being personnel
Another problem is the scarcity of specialized well being personnel. Of the 1,600 well being employees, solely 900 have everlasting jobs. The relaxation are substitutes.
In 2024, the toddler mortality in Greenland was a lot greater than in Denmark, 8,5 deaths per 1,000 stay births, in comparison with 2,6 in Denmark. At the identical time, a scarcity of midwives has led to the closure of two out of 5 maternity wards, the report acknowledged.
The rising prices for diabetes and weight problems medicines, corresponding to Ozempic and Wegovy, are additionally placing rising stress on healthcare budgets and affected person entry.
Patient transportation prices from small settlements to cities and from Greenland to Denmark are additionally rising, costing between DKK 25,000 and DKK 500,000 per evacuation ( € 3,250 to € 65,000).
Greenlandic most cancers sufferers even have nearly twice the mortality danger in comparison with Danes, primarily as a consequence of late prognosis and remedy, in accordance with the Danish Ministry of Health and Interior. Minister Løhde now hopes to alter this.
“It is vital that Greenlandic most cancers sufferers obtain the absolute best remedy in order that their probabilities of efficiently overcoming their sickness are elevated. That is why we should create the absolute best situations for Greenlandic sufferers who come to Denmark to obtain radiation remedy or different types of specialised remedy at Danish hospitals,” Løhde acknowledged.
IUD compensation choice
The Greenlandic cupboard is collaborating with the Danish Capital Region, the place the Rigshospitalet, the biggest public and instructing hospital in Copenhagen, receives sufferers who can’t be handled in Greenland. There are additionally bilateral collaborations between departments at a number of of the area’s hospitals and the Greenlandic Health Service.
An upcoming well being settlement will incorporate new and particular collaborations, meant to “guarantee broad political assist for the framework that can develop the well being sector going ahead”, Wangenheim acknowledged.
More than a month in the past, Løhde formally apologised to hundreds of Greenlandic girls who had been pressured to hold intrauterine gadgets (spirals) inserted by Danish medical doctors to stop being pregnant between 1966 and 1974. Some had been as younger as 12.
During her current go to, Løhde introduced that the Danish authorities is working to determine a reconciliation fund. It will present particular person monetary compensation upon software. However, the compensation scheme needs to be established by regulation in Denmark, which suggests it should seemingly not be carried out till the second half of 2026, inflicting scepticism in Greenland about whether or not these had been empty guarantees.
The new well being care settlement builds on a mutual monetary settlement in September this 12 months, wherein Denmark promised to allocate € 210 million (DKK 1,6 billion) from 2026 to 2029 to assist Greenlandic infrastructure tasks and different initiatives, in addition to masking the prices for Greenlandic sufferers who want care in Denmark.
[VA, BM]
