appendix d: summaries of selected cases stated that the man’s applications had been refused on the grounds that he did not have a clean criminal record. The Ombudsman decided to open an own-­ initiative investigation of the matter vis-à-vis the local authority. While processing the case, the Ombudsman raised some additional questions regarding the local authority’s actions in relation to requesting and registration of criminal record certificates. The local authority stated that convicted persons were not excluded in advance from employment. In addition, the local authority decided, while the Ombuds­ man was processing the case, that in future a specific assessment of each individual case would be made to determine whether to request a private criminal record certificate. The Ombudsman criticised that the local authority did not register in its archives those criminal record certificates which it obtained directly from the Commissioner of Police or received from job applicants. (Case No. 2008-4296-810) 20-6. Region’s processing of complaint about ambulance response time open to severe criticism A woman telephoned the emergency call centre after finding her husband unconscious. However, the emergency call centre gave a wrong address to the ambulance operator. This delayed the ambulance and the woman’s husband died. The woman lodged a complaint with Region Zealand about the time that elapsed before the ambulance arrived. The Region did not request the necessary information from the emergency call centre and the ambulance operator to be able to reply to the complaint. As a ­result, the Region’s reply to the woman did not contain an account of the chain of events. Neither did the Region’s reply address the woman’s complaint about the ambulance response time. The woman therefore objected against the Region’s reply. At first the Region did not reply to her objections, but after the woman had complained to the Ombudsman, the Region wrote to her that it had not replied to her objections because it had considered the matter closed. It was the Ombudsman’s overall opinion that the way in which the Region had dealt with the woman’s complaint was a matter for severe criticism. He recommended that the Region consider whether there was a more general need for establishing guidelines for case processing at the Region’s pre-hospital centre. (Case No. 2010-0573-4299) 135