L-R: Paulette Lenert, Minister of Health; Corinne Cahen, Minister for Family Affairs & Integration;
Credit: MSAN
On Monday 28 September 2020, Luxembourg's Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert, and Minister for Family Affairs and Integration, Corinne Cahen, signed an agreement with the AMMD doctors and dentists' association and the COPAS federation setting up an out-of-hours general practice (GP) in residential facilities for the elderly.
With a view to perfecting the current care offer and in the interest of providing care home residents with additional assistance, a GP service will be set up in the various accommodation structures for the elderly in Luxembourg.
This service will be provided in the evening and at night from 20:00 to 07:00, on holidays and on weekends (from 08:00 on Saturday mornings until 08:00 on Monday mornings) by general practitioners (GPs) authorised to practise in Luxembourg for the care of patients not requiring urgent medical care.
This replacement and on-call service is organised by the AMMD with the collaboration and financial support of the state. The aim is to offer a complementary range of primary care for the benefit of patients residing in accommodation structures for the elderly.
The doctor will provide the continuity service for 350 to 600 beds, grouped together between several accommodation structures.
The GP service is based on the principle of fair solidarity with a workload distributed in a balanced way in terms of the frequency of services rendered and, as far as possible, in terms of volume of activity and taking into account geographical proximity, as well as the number of residents.
For organisational needs, the AMMD will appoint between ten and fifteen loco-regional coordinators chosen from the doctors providing the service, as well as a national coordinator. The national coordinator is also a member of the evaluation committee for this pilot project made up of representatives of the Health and Family Ministries, the Health Directorate, the AMMD and the COPAS (which represents care sector service providers in Luxembourg).
This pilot project will be rolled out gradually and will run over a period of two years, from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2022.
