The news of the Opportunity Passport infuriated GPs: how absurd have we gotten?

It is true that the proof of opportunity remains in the passport. However, an antigen test, that is, a rapid test, would no longer be appropriate because it is not as accurate as a PCR test. Free tests would also be abolished to receive them, unless a person cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

A power of attorney is required to issue an Opportunity Passport to another person at the Records Center. This cannot be done any other way, even if you want to delete the document of someone close to you. Residents are particularly dissatisfied with this rule and wonder how GPs will be removed by older people who do not use the Internet and cannot go to the Registration Center.

So the government has already started to think about how to solve this problem and make it easier to obtain a GP.

“I think that a certificate that a person has actually been vaccinated could be available in more diverse forms, even for people who do not have a smartphone and do not have the convenience of obtaining it from the Registration Center. It would be possible to print in a medical institution or otherwise, ”Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said on Thursday night on LRT’s“ Daily Theme ”program.

At that time, on Friday, the chairman of the Seimas Labor and Social Affairs Commission, Mindaugas Lingė, announced on Facebook that he was already preparing to give residents more ways to pick up the Opportunity Passport. A politician wrote on Facebook that preparations were being made to match the Passport of Opportunity with a vaccination certificate, an EU digital COVID certificate for those vaccinated, a document proving a case of COVID-19 disease or a negative result. Of the test.

“These documents, which cannot be related to health, can be issued by a family doctor,” he wrote. According to M. Lingė, it is also planned to install additional points for the convenience of people, where it will be possible to print (with the help of) documents proving immunity.

Doctors say that this work has absolutely nothing to do with medicine.

The medical community was very angry about another extra job that was imposed on them. According to them, requests for removal of GPs they receive on a daily basis. However, this is a job that has nothing to do with medicine and treatment.

“We get requests to withdraw GPs on a daily basis. Four, five and ten times in the last few days. This is extra work. Also, we will not say that we will register in a week and then we will eliminate. They usually say they need to be here and now, because they want to go somewhere, by the sea, go to cafes and that passport is necessary now, ”said Toma Kundrotė, deputy director of the Medical Movement and family doctor.

It turns out that not only the elderly, but also the relatively young turn to family doctors for this service. This is a 40 year old man who does not have access to eHealth to see a doctor this week.

According to the doctor, the removal of a GP with the direct work of a doctor is an unrelated service and should not fall on the shoulders of the doctors.

“Let’s start with the fact that this is an absolutely non-medical service. As a doctor, when it comes to health or its prevention, I see no intention of removing someone’s documents that have nothing to do with health. The Passport of Opportunity gives you the opportunity to go to the store, go to the movies, have fun, etc. Is it the doctor’s job here to give those permits? Maybe then we are going to give permission to buy sunglasses? Or 2 liters of milk instead of 1 liter? To what absurdity we descend.

So who is a family doctor? Secretary of each person? Contact us because they say they do not have access data and will not collect it anywhere. When we say that I need to get a mobile signature, contact my phone provider to get one, the “atamas” start, that my mobile is bad or something else, it requires doctors to remove the connections because “it is not difficult for them.” Yes, it is difficult for us, because we no longer have when to work our direct work, ”said T. Kundrotė.

According to the doctor, due to such bureaucratic work, there will not be enough time to admit other patients later, because more and more people request the removal of the GP every day:

That work could be done by social workers.

Family doctor Valery Morozov also shares the opinion of T. Kundrotė and says that we also have to receive calls for removal of the GP every day.

“It is common in Lithuania that whenever it is necessary to burden someone with an uncomfortable job, they accuse family doctors. It doesn’t matter that we have absolutely nothing to do with it. Yes, here too, usually ask all the questions and ask a family doctor. He comes or calls every day because someone does not see something in the Oportunidades passport or cannot remove it, ”said V. Morozov.

According to the interlocutor, the doctor could only coordinate the issuance of a GP if he had registered coronavirus disease, entered disease codes and had not entered or entered the code by mistake, but not that code. According to V. Morozov, if he was sick, but no one sees him, the doctor should definitely fill out such a form.

“For all other matters, vaccinations, tests and so on, the GP has nothing to do with the Passport of Opportunities,” said the interviewee.

Currently, according to the doctor, doctors have been recommended to issue GPs to patients if the person does not have access to the Internet, electronic banking or is a foreigner. In this case, the patient can go to the family doctor and the one who connects to e-health sends a family doctor.

Nurses and registrars generally cannot do this job because, as medical institutions explain, they do not have the authority to do so under BDAR, the personal data protection law.

However, according to Morozov, the removal of a GP does not require a doctor at all, it requires a person who could simply join e-health.

“You can do it soc. employee, majority employee, SAM employees. But for some reason it is left to the doctors. Access to doctors is already more difficult now. Forcing doctors to do that job is a very stupid choice. “Certain employees may and may have rights,” the doctor said.

Alma Astafjeva, president of the Lithuanian Union of Family Physicians, also believes that the issue of issuing a GP should not become a medical problem.

“Doctors should spend all their time consulting and treating patients, not issuing certificates. Family doctors are closer to patients, so patients who have nowhere to go see family doctors, so other patients suffer, ”commented A. Astafjeva.