|
Sør-Trøndelag
| Doctors feel pressured to hand over patients' medical records |
| [Norwaynews] [31.08.2007, 12:27am, Fri. GMT] |
| Doctors criticised the social welfare agency NAV for demanding insight into confidential medical records, calling it a breach of patients’ trust and a danger to patient’s safety. NAV denied criticism, claiming that only in exceptional circumstances has the agency asked for full records. Doctors feeling that they betray patients’ confidence by giving out their medical records lashed out against the social welfare agency NAV on Wednesday, claiming that the agency unnecessarily and without reason demands insight into journals that are meant for GP eyes only. GP Sjur Agdesten claimed he "felt pressured" to give out 11 medical records by a NAV representative in mid-August. In hindsight, he regretted that he had handed over the confidential documents. |
 | | | | Victim of ambulance neglect still in coma |
| [Norwaynews] [30.08.2007, 11:44pm, Thu. GMT] |
A 37-year-old man who was badly injured in an Oslo park last week, and then denied ambulance transport to a local hospital, remained in a coma Tuesday. His case has sparked a huge debate on latent racism within Norwegian society. Ali Haji Mohamed Farah, a Somalian-Norwegian, initially was the victim of random aggravated assault in Oslo's Sofienberg Park last Monday afternoon. He'd been relaxing in the park with family and friends when someone playing football, also of African descent, allegedly assaulted him after a minor conflict.
Ali Farah was severely injured, and his condition may have worsened after ethnic Norwegian ambulance drivers arriving at the scene refused to take him to hospital. Witnesses say the ambulance personnel performed only a cursory examination, verbally abused him and left the scene, telling police to take the assault victim to a medical clinic instead. |
| | | | Offshore accounts widespread |
| [Norwaynews] [30.08.2007, 11:06pm, Thu. GMT] |
Investigators claim that Norwegian companies, and quite a few individual Norwegians, maintain secret bank accounts outside the country, much like the one that brought the political career of Oslo's mayor to an abrupt end this week. It's a form of corruption that officials have trouble cracking. Both large and small Norwegian companies hide money that they don't report to Norwegian tax authorities in foreign bank accounts, say corruption investigators like Erling Grimstad, the former head of Norway's white collar crime unit Økokrim.
The money, he told newspaper Aftenposten on Friday, is most often stashed in bank accounts under fictional names. The accounts can be accessed by credit cards that often are used to pay for everything from travel and entertainment to shopping, while cash withdrawn from the accounts can cover more illicit activity like bribery and prostitution. |
|
|
|
| New Opera chief from Scotland |
| [Norwaynews] [30.08.2007, 11:58pm, Thu. GMT] |
The newly appointed chief of the Norwegian Opera (Den Norske Opera) promises to develop home-grown talent, even though he doesn't hail from Norway himself. Paul Curran is only 42 years old, and Norway's leading international opera singer, Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz, said she'd never heard of him. "He's completely unknown to me," she told newspaper Aftenposten, "but it's exciting that he's young. Then there's sure to be a lot new he will mount, and many new impulses. It can be good to have an artistic leader with a foreign background."
The Opera officials who hired Curran clearly agree, and claim they've nabbed an enthusiastic and sought-after rising international star. |
| | | | Norwegian flowers in space |
| [Norwaynews] [30.08.2007, 11:33pm, Thu. GMT] |
| Seeds of Norwegian flowers were on board when space craft «Endeavour» left Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week. Seeds of vårskrinneblom will help scientists understand how to grow flowers with no gravity, knowledge necessary in order to send man to Mars. Tiny seeds of Norwegian flower vårskrinneblom have left for an unusual journal this week, aiming to help scientists understand how flowers can grow while weightless. Professor Tor-Henning Iversen at the Norwegian university of science and techology, NTNU, in Trondheim, has waited and prepared for this moment for years. "Our experiment is important in order to select and develop new species that can handle weightlessness," he said. |
|
|
|
|
|
Special Interest
Advertisements
|
Akershus
The world's larges tobacco company Phillip Morris International (PMI) is taking the Norwegian state to court. PMI wants the Norwegian ban on displaying tobacco products in stores lifted, Dagens Næringsliv reports. There is no scientific evidence that the ban has any health effect, says PMI communication director Anne Edwards to the newspaper. She points to Iceland, which introduced the ban against the display of tobacco in stores in 2001.
