The principle of a blacklist is shocking for the CHL, but it is fully accepted. (Photo: Matic Zorman/ Maison Moderne)

The principle of a blacklist is shocking for the CHL, but it is fully accepted. (Photo: Matic Zorman/ Maison Moderne)

A list of patients considered "persona non grata" is causing debate amid the Luxembourg hospital group CHL. The management insists that blacklisting is only carried out to protect its staff and that it follows a 2004 law on patients' rights.

Since August, the management of the CHL has drawn up a "black list" of "persona non grata", "people who, for one reason or another, have very limited access to CHL services,” it confirms. This includes scheduled medical procedures if they are not urgent.

If a patient on the list presents themselves at the admission desk of one of the hospitals, the staff is instructed not to offer any appointment. No further explanation is required. The strict instruction also applies to those accompanying children. In an emergency, it is up to the doctor to decide whether the patient should be treated or removed from the hospital.

This procedure has been causing a stir among hospital staff.

Contacted by Delano’s sister publication Paperjam, the administration of the CHL refuses to speak of a "black list" and prefers to evoke "a computerised follow-up of the persons, which is not in our eyes a list". This would be justified by "the sharp increase in acts of violence, both physical and verbal, by patients against our doctors and carers devoted to their care".

A letter to warn the patient

Included on what is therefore not a list are people "who have repeatedly and extremely threatened or verbally or physically assaulted CHL staff". According to the CHL, this would apply to fewer than 10 people "out of the 175,000 people treated in 2021". Such incidents mainly take place in the emergency room.

According to the CHL, the people on this list are notified by mail. They have no right to access or modify their data. After two years, the administration will take the initiative to remove a person from the list on the initiative of the IT department.

This entire procedure is in line with the law of 24 July 2014 on patients' rights and obligations, the CHL insists.

What can "non grata" patients do? For any treatment other than emergencies, they are asked to go to another hospital in Luxembourg. Patients requiring treatment in a national service are treated there if it is a specific procedure for which the hospital has a monopoly in the country.

When contacted, the ministry of health did not wish to comment on a subject that is obviously sensitive in many respects.

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