Abstract

A provincial general practitioner consults an ophthalmologist for a visual problem that afflicts him and is affecting his day-to-day performance. He requests a consultation to be paid by the prepaid medicine system to which he is affiliated to. Despite identifying himself as a doctor, he does not get an appointment with a good opportunity, and when attending it, he finds that, despite being a colleague of the ophthalmologist, he must pay the required co-payment in addition. When he asked if, as a colleague of the treating physician, he is not exempt from paying co-payments, they answered that this exemption from charging colleagues for medical services was abolished with the advent and development of the social health security system that the country adopted a few decades ago. The doctor patient pays the required co-payment with discomfort and, when he returns to his hospital, complains about the lack of collegiality from his treating doctor. He decides to refer his case to a medical ethics committee in the region.