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(2004/C 84 E/0006)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0759/03

by Vitaliano Gemelli (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(6 March 2003)

Subject:   The European Commission's medical service

The Commission's reply to written question P-0021/03 (1) shows that the appointment of senior staff in the medical service hinged on erroneous reference to the hospital management system in some Member States and on a mistaken desire to equate the prevention and monitoring duties of an occupational health service with the essentially curative aims of hospitals.

The Commission and the other Community institutions are aware of this distinction and have always placed the medical services under the authority of an occupational health physician, thereby adhering in letter and in spirit to the recommendations of the ILO and of the Commission itself.

In the light of the above, and since it is impossible to see which ‘non-strictly medical’ facets of the medical service justify having an administrative official as the head of that service, does the Commission not consider that the new arrangements for that service are incompatible with the need for a sound management of resources and liable to undermine the principle that there should always be mutual trust between the institution and its officials?

What measures has the Commission taken to prevent the head of the medical service — who has absolutely no medical knowledge — from becoming party, even inadvertently, to health-related data contained in the files processed by the medical service? Has the European Data Protection Supervisor been notified of these measures, pursuant to Article 27 of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 (2) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(8 April 2003)

The Commission reaffirms the fact, as stated in the reply to the Honourable Member's uestion No P-0021/03 (3), that the medical side of the Medical Service is managed entirely by the Medical Adviser whose qualifications and experience are beyond doubt.

The Administrator whose function the Honourable Member questions has no access to medical data. The Commission also points out that Article 17 of the Staff Regulations, to which Article 49 of Regulation 45/2001 (4) refers, gives guarantees of protection of the confidentiality of personal data. It is the provisions of that Article which ensure that the personnel of the Medical Service secretariat, who may see medical data, are subject to an obligation of strict confidentiality.

Article 10(3) of Regulation 45/2001 provides that ‘ ... those data are processed by a health professional subject to the obligation of professional secrecy or by another person also subject to an equivalent obligation of secrecy’.

Provisions have been adopted so that any processing operations which could be likely to present specific risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects will, for the purposes of Article 27, be notified to the European Data Protection Supervisor once he has taken up his duties.

The reference to hospital management in the previous answer was not ‘erroneous’ and it was merely intended to illustrate managerial options in large organisations in order to assist the Honourable Member. Hospitals and other medical services do, as he says, have ‘essentially curative aims’. They also need to be run effectively as organisations. Putting an administrator in charge of administration enables the medical expert to focus exclusively on the critically important medical functions of the service.

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(1)  See page 1.

(2)OJ L 8, 12.1.2001, p. 1.

(3)  See page 1.

(4)  Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data, OJ L 8, 12.1.2001.

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