The Ombudsman has looked into disabled access to a number of healthcare centres

Publiceret 29-01-2025

As part of his monitoring of the accessibility to public buildings for persons with disabilities, the Parliamentary Ombudsman has over a period of time focused on healthcare centres. He has carried out monitoring visits to six healthcare centres around the country.

The Ombudsman has found that the structural conditions have generally made it possible for users with disabilities to move around indoors in the visited healthcare centres, including to use treatment and exercise rooms. However, the Ombudsman has assessed that access to the centres and the disabled toilet facilities may have made accessibility to the centres difficult for users with disabilities.

All six monitoring visits have given the Ombudsman cause for recommendations aimed at improving the healthcare centres’ accessibility.

‘Access to healthcare treatment can be critical for everyone, and persons with disabilities must of course have the same access to healthcare treatment in local healthcare centres as everybody else. It is therefore crucial that the authorities make sure that healthcare centres are actually accessible to all users’, says temporary Parliamentary Ombudsman Henrik Bloch Andersen.

The Ombudsman’s recommendations have included:

  • Parking facilities for disability cars
  • Access areas and entrance and exit sections
  • The design of toilets for the disabled
  • Access to website information on the healthcare centre’s accessibility for persons with disabilities.

The Ombudsman has summarised the results of the six monitoring visits in a thematic report on accessibility to healthcare centres for persons with disabilities. The report is sent to Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee, Housing Committee, Health Committee and Legal Affairs Committee and to Disabled People’s Organisations Denmark, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing, Local Government Denmark and Danish Regions, among others.

The Ombudsman’s monitoring visits have included the following healthcare centres: Sundhedscenter Odsherred, Hillerød Kommunes Sundhedscenter, Hvidovre Sundhedscenter, Horsens Kommune’s healthcare centre (Vital Horsens), Brørup Sundhedscenter and Nyborg Kommunes Sundhedscenter.

Read the entire thematic report on accessibility of healthcare centres for persons with disabilities (in Danish only).

Further details:

Director of International Relations, Klavs Kinnerup Hede, kkh@ombudsmanden.dk

Facts

The Ombudsman’s monitoring of accessibility

On 2 April 1993, Parliament adopted motion B 43 on equal rights and equal treatment of persons with disabilities. In the motion, Parliament asked the Parliamentary Ombudsman to ‘follow developments in equal treatment and if necessary express criticism where possible within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction’. In connection with the reading of resolution B 15 of 17 December 2010, which concerned Parliament’s implementation of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010, the scheme was confirmed.

As part of his work in the field of disability, the Parliamentary Ombudsman carries out monitoring visits to public buildings, particularly with accessibility for persons with disabilities in mind. The monitoring visits normally comprise the buildings’ accessibility for all who use them. The purpose of the monitoring visits is partly to generally follow developments in the field of accessibility for persons with disabilities and thereby gain experience of the more general work in the field, partly to point out specific flaws and deficiencies where necessary.

According to Section 7(1) of the Parliamentary Ombudsman Act (Consolidation Act No. 349 of 22 March 2013), the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction extends to all parts of the public administration. Pursuant to Section 18 of the Act, the Ombudsman may inspect any institution or company and any place of employment which falls within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. In connection with such an investigation, the Ombudsman can, among other things, make assessments based on universally human and humanitarian points of view.