None of the doctors at the Sørland hospital will perform circumcision of boys. Thus the hospital must buy this service from a private hospital.

The regional health authorities are obliged to offer ritual circumcision of boys and to make sure it happens safely. Meanwhile, health workers can opt out of performing this proceedure for reasons of conscience , writes Fædrelandsvennen.

– Until last summer the Sørland hospital in Kristiansand had one urologist who was willing to perform the procedure at the hospital. This urologist has left and the offer has ceased, because no other doctors would take over.

We are nonetheless obliged to find an offer for patients in our region, and on this basis an agreement has been signed with Ibsen’s Hospital in Porsgrunn, says director Per Engstrand at the Sørland hospitals.

It is primarily Jews and Muslims who practice ritual circumcision of boys. Almost no hospitals in Norway carry out this procedure because doctors refuse for reasons of conscience.

After the urologist who performed circumcision in Kristiansand left, the hospital received ten requests for this procedure prior to the agreement with the private hospital in Porsgrunn being signed. All the ten cases were referred to Ibsen’s Hospital.

Each year around 2,000 boys in Norway are circumcised, writes Fædrelandsvennen.

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today

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