"A meeting has taken place, talks are ongoing. They are not yet closed. So I am waiting for a sign from the operators and a hospital that there will be an agreement before the end of the week," explains Paulette Lenert. Photo: Paul Foguenne

"A meeting has taken place, talks are ongoing. They are not yet closed. So I am waiting for a sign from the operators and a hospital that there will be an agreement before the end of the week," explains Paulette Lenert. Photo: Paul Foguenne

Health minister Paulette Lenert (LSAP) insisted on 3 May that without regularisation, the MRI facility in Grevenmacher would be closed.

She has adopted a different interpretation of the law than the one communicated on Monday by the Potaaschbierg medical centre. "If there is no prospect of regularisation, I will be forced to close this establishment," Lenert told Delano’s sister publication Paperjam on Tuesday in reference to the MRI facility in Grevenmacher. An agreement should be reached before the end of the week.

This statement follows the by the Potaaschbierg medical centre, which operates the MRI in question. It considers that the position of the health ministry is not correct, stating that the Grand-Ducal regulation of 2004, to which the ministry refers, is contrary to the applicable law and that the hospital law of 2018, which requires authorisation, does not apply to the current situation.

"Reading the press release, I feel more like I'm reading a court pleading than a press release,” Lenert said, adding: "But that's the operator's view..."

According to the minister, in the case of the use of an MRI, "according to our interpretation of the hospital law as it stands today, it must be a hospital operator. So an agreement will have to be found with a hospital establishment. And this is the direction in which talks are being held.”

Agreement by the end of the week

The minister has given a week to find out if an agreement between the MRI operators and a hospital player could be reached. "A meeting has taken place, talks are ongoing. They are not yet closed. So I am waiting, before the end of the week, for a sign from the operators and a hospital establishment to tell me that there will be an agreement," explains Lenert.

Already in 2020, the ministry suffered a legal setback as it had to grant a licence for the centre to buy the MRI machine after a Luxembourg court ruled that laws forbidding doctor’s offices form operating radiology equipment are unconstitutional.

The ministry granted the licence but pushed for a delay for the centre to open, also as questions remain about the reimbursement of fees by national health insurer CNS.

The national health fund (CNS) currently only reimburses scans made at a Luxembourg hospital. Patients receive €150 for a scan carried out abroad, with some patients choosing destinations in the greater region because of wait times of up to six months in Luxembourg.

Without regularisation, the establishment will close, minister Lenert said. "This is regrettable. So we are looking for and hoping for an agreement," she added.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.