Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-15-Speech-4-012"

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"en.20040115.1.4-012"2
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". Mr President, on Tuesday this week in the United Kingdom a Dr Harold Shipman committed suicide. He was not just a statistic; he was a health professional who was serving 15 life sentences for the murder of 215 of his patients. Therefore, Commissioner, when we are looking at professional qualifications and seeking ways of facilitating professional mobility, as we should, we are not just talking about job opportunity or filling vacancies, or even individual professional freedom. We should be talking about the protection of vulnerable individuals: simple procedures, yes; riskier procedures, no. In Britain, if you go to your doctor's surgery, you expect the nice new doctor from Italy or Lithuania or wherever to be qualified, and you assume that the proper checks have been made as to his or her integrity and experience and to ensure that the name does not figure on any blacklist for professional or other malpractice. The same applies to your dentist, your nurse, your pharmacist and to other professions, too, such as the architect who has built your house. Hence, we were horrified to realise that the original proposal would have allowed any professional to go to any other EU country and practise there for 16 weeks without any authorisation, checks or vetting. Dr Shipman could have come to a surgery near you. Having talked to British and European professional organisations, I therefore raised this in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which asked me to produce an opinion. This was adopted unanimously. It struck out the 16-week provision, it added Article 152 as a legal basis for the directive, and it called for the setting up of a European database of professionals who have been struck off in one Member State, so that they cannot practise in another. These and most of our other amendments, I am happy to say, have been accepted by Mr Zappalà and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. We are grateful to them. More importantly, patients and our constituents in every Member State will be grateful if these safeguards are maintained."@en1
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