Tue, Nov 14th 2023
The company Mobile Ärzte AG, which offered a 24-hour emergency and home visit service in several cantons, has gone bankrupt and had to close down. This has consequences in the canton of Aargau, where the company provided services for the judiciary and police.
The discontinuation of services makes it necessary to take measures in the area of detention capacity and care accommodation, the Aargau Department of Health and Social Affairs (DGS) announced on Monday evening. An employee of the company informed the cantonal emergency call center on Sunday evening that the agreed services could no longer be provided.
Immediate measures have been taken, the press release continued. Solutions are being sought with doctors in private practice. The canton assumes that there may be waiting times when examining the ability to remain in custody and in the case of preventive accommodation.
The mobile doctors provided services on behalf of the judicial authorities and the police. The company also checked the fitness for interrogation of people who had been provisionally arrested and issued death certificates, among other things.
Criticism in parliament
At the end of 2020, the cantonal government admitted in its response to a question in the cantonal parliament that there were problems with the cooperation with the mobile doctors. Doctors, institutions, police and authorities were not satisfied with the work of the private service provider.
The system of public health officers was abolished in the canton of Aargau at the beginning of 2017. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find GPs to take on these tasks in the militia system.
The canton therefore concluded a contract with the private service provider. However, the language skills of the doctors were poor, the government council noted in its statement. There was a lack of empathy towards relatives and patients. Invoices were also too high.
There was a lack of competence in the field of psychiatry, he said. He based this criticism on surveys of doctors in Aargau.
The company Mobile Ärzte AG is based in Allschwil BL. According to the canton of Aargau, the debt enforcement and bankruptcy office of the canton of Basel-Landschaft had already published a provisional bankruptcy notice on November 7. The company only informed the canton of Aargau on Monday afternoon.
©Keystone/SDA
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