Danish government strikes deal to restructure health system around 21 ‘health clusters’ 

Denmark’s government has struck a deal with the Danish Regions and the National Association of Local Authorities to create 21 “health clusters”, which will allow more seamless cooperation between regional health authorities, municipalities and primary health care centres. 

The new clusters will be based around the country’s 21 emergency care hospitals, and are designed to ensure better coordination for treatment of the elderly, psychiatric patients, and people with chronic disease, where responsibility for treatment is split between different levels of government. 

In a press release, Magnus Heunicke, Denmark’s health minister, said the move showed the government taking long overdue action to counter the problem of poor coordination. 

“We are now seriously tackling the challenge of lack of coherence. It has been the Achilles heel of health care for far too many years,” he said. 

Danish government strikes deal for tighter regulation of admission at upper secondary schools

Denmark’s government has struck a political deal with parties representing a majority in the parliament to reform the admissions system for Danish upper secondary schools. There will now be a dual system, with parental income playing a greater role in schools in the big cities, and a minimum number of students set for small schools in rural areas. 

Missing Bornholm man found dead in the Søndre Bådehavn harbour

A 20-year-old man who had been missing since he left a party in Rønne, the main city on the island of Bornholm early on Monday morning, has been found dead in the city’s Søndre Bådehavn harbour. 

Volunteers from the organisation Missing People, and the sea rescue services had all been searching for the man, sending up a drone to search over the water. 

Number of Covid-19 patients in Danish hospitals hits 8-month low

There are currently only 120 patients being treated for coronavirus in Denmark’s hospitals, the lowest number in eight months, and 475 new infections registered in the last 24 hours, the country’s health minister, Magnus Heunicke, said at a press conference on Thursday. The number of patients is down 88 percent since the peak seen at the start of January. 

At the same time, the pace of vaccinations is picking up with 70,000 doses given a day over the past three days, he said.  

Killing Denmark’s minks cost half a billion kroner 

The bill for the Danish government’s decision to order the death of all Denmark’s 15m minks in order to prevent the spread of new variants of Covid-19 came to 600 million kroner, according to a memo sent to the Danish parliament’s finance committee. 

This sum covers only the killing of the minks, the equipment needed, and the cleaning and disinfection that needed to be carried out. It doesn’t include the cost of burying the carcasses and then excavating and incinerating them, let alone the cost of reimbursing farmers for their losses.