Anna Šabatová, Czech Ombudswoman, and Günther Kräuter, one of three Austrian Ombudsmen, together with their colleagues from the social security departments met in Vienna on the 20th February and discussed the cross-border problems concerning the application of the EU Regulation on the Coordination of Social Security Systems in the EU Member States.

The meeting followed after the meeting from November 2017 in Mikulov which has started the cooperation between the two ombudsmen’s offices in matters concerning both concrete cross-border cases and systematic problems from the area of EU social security law (especially family benefits).

The problematic cases concern mostly parents who live in a different EU Member State than they actually work and ask for family benefits in one of these states. The applicants usually wait for months, even years until their claims are processed by the public authorities. There are two main reasons causing the delays – public authority dealing with the case is overloaded and therefore the administrative procedure takes too long or the question of which state is competent to process the claim and pay the benefits is unclear.

In the first case, the service SOLVIT can help to make the whole process quicker or smoother. In the second case, however, the situation is more complicated because there is no conclusion between the public authorities from the EU Member States concerned on which of them is competent, and therefore obliged to deal with the claim.

The number of claims concerning the above mentioned issues is gradually increasing in both countries. Mr. Günther Kräuter and Ms. Anna Šabatová came to conclusion that this issue shall be brought to attention during the annual European Network of Ombudsmen Conference in Brussels in the beginning of March this year. The cooperation between the Czech and Austrian Ombudsman Institutions shall continue in order to support each other in addressing the difficulties connected with the interpretation and rightful application of the EU Regulation on the Coordination of Social Security Systems. 

The Seimas Ombudsmen's Office was granted a certificate attesting to its compliance with the Parise Principles during the General Assembly of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) on 20-23 February 2018.

Seimas Ombudsman Raimondas Šukys and Chief Counsellor of the Seimas Ombudsmen's Office Vytautas Valentinavičius attended the working group on the improvement of the accreditation mechanism of national human rights institutions organised by the European National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) in Geneva. During the special session dedicated to CRPD issues, the representatives of the Seimas Ombudsmen's Office discussed the role of national human rights institutions in encouraging the states to implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

At the meeting with Ms Theresia Degener, the Chair of the U. N. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the representatives of the national human rights institutions discussed the challenges with which the Member State face in implementing CRPD. By adopting the joint resolution, the NHRIs and Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, drew the attention of the Member States to the need for establishing independent monitoring mechanisms or monitoring frameworks at the national level.

At the end of the GANHRI meeting, representatives of the Lithuanian and Latvian national human rights institutions held the event "Use of soft power in pursuit of more effective implementation of the recommendations of the NHRI", with the aim of commemorating the 100th anniversary of restored independence of Baltic States.

The Seimas Ombudsmen protects the human right to good public administration, which guarantees human rights and freedoms, supervises whether authorities fulfill their duty to serve the people and promote respect for human rights and freedoms while exercising the functions of the national human rights institution. The Seimas Ombudsmen also carry out national prevention of torture at detention facilities under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Press release

24 October 2017: Patient dies after hospital fails to diagnose heart problem

A Hywel Dda Health Board patient suffered a cardiac arrest and died, after staff failed to

correctly diagnose and manage his heart failure.

Mr F (anonymised) was admitted to the Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli in May 2014 for a

scheduled hip replacement operation. This was carried out without complication and Mr F

was recovering well.

A junior doctor reviewed Mr F the following day but he was not seen by a senior physician

for the next three days, and two subsequent consultant visits weren’t recorded. Mr F was

later deemed fit for discharge but when his family arrived to collect him, his condition had

deteriorated.

Whilst a junior doctor diagnosed an intestinal blockage with possible sepsis, Mr F’s

additional condition of cardiac failure was never considered.

Mr F appeared to stabilise and his family returned home to allow him to rest. Shortly

afterwards Mr F’s blood pressure dropped alarmingly, and he suffered a fatal cardiac

arrest.

Ms D contacted the Ombudsman to complain about her father’s care after the Health Board

failed to adequately respond to her concerns. The Ombudsman found that:

• despite Mr F’s medical history putting him at risk of heart disease, no pre- operative ECG[i]  or chest x

-ray were carried out

• due to lack of support, junior doctors failed to diagnose Mr F’s cardiac condition

which consequently led to an inappropriate care management plan •

his family weren’t informed of the seriousness of his condition, denying them the

opportunity to be with him when he died

• the Health Board failed to acknowledge the incomplete diagnosis and its implications.

Commenting on the report, Nick Bennett, Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, said:

“It is extremely worrying that junior level staff were left unsupervised to make significant

clinical decisions. The alarming lack of medical notes and failure to recognise Mr F’s heart

condition meant that opportunities to escalate him to the Medical Emergency Team were

missed.

“Not only did Mr F’s family wait over 13 months for a response to their

concerns which in itself is unacceptable, that response failed to acknowledge the incorrect provisional

diagnosis and its dire implications.

“This case demonstrates a catalogue of serious failings which, together, create significant

doubt around whether Mr F’s death was, as the Health Board suggested, inevitable.”