MP presses minister on clubfoot treatment abroad

Centre Party MP Nanna Margrét Gunnlaugsdóttir has asked the health minister to explain how treatment centres abroad are selected for children with clubfoot, mbl.is reports.

She asks why all procedures subsidised by Icelandic Health Insurance are planned to take place in Sweden rather than the United States, where some of the leading clubfoot specialists work.

The only specialist who has treated the children in Iceland is due to take leave, and no treatment plan has yet been confirmed. The children are likely to be sent abroad. Landspítali is working on a service agreement with one of its sister hospitals in the Nordic countries, possibly Karolinska University Hospital or Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

Four mothers interviewed by mbl.is said they had taken their sons to the same doctor in the United States, whom they described as one of the world’s leading specialists. They are concerned that all children are expected to receive treatment in the Nordic countries. The mothers are not aware of any Icelandic child having been treated for clubfoot in Sweden, and say a leading clubfoot specialist at Karolinska has also left the hospital. Parents of children in Sweden are worried, they said.

Some parents have had to pay for treatment abroad themselves, with costs sometimes exceeding ten million. The mothers said the situation for Icelandic children with clubfoot was inadequate.

In her questions to the minister, Gunnlaugsdóttir asks what criteria Icelandic Health Insurance uses when choosing treatment centres abroad, and how it weighs providers’ expertise, experience and results against the cost of existing agreements and the centre’s location within the European Economic Area.

She also asks whether the hospital and the director of health were consulted about treatment options, whether Icelandic Health Insurance has stopped approving coverage for clubfoot treatment in the United States, and whether the minister plans to review regulations so that treatment quality and outcomes for children determine the choice of centre.