– We do not need more studies, we need action.
This is what the leader of the Norwegian Anesthesiology Association and chief physician at the Emergency Department at Oslo University Hospital, Jon Henrik Laake, tells Dagbladet.
The country’s intensive care units have long called for a shortage of personnel. Nevertheless, Minister of Health Ingvild Kjerkol (Labor Party), who herself has asked the previous government to take immediate action, will now set up a commission to look at solutions to health personnel shortages.
For that, Laake and president of the medical association, Anne Karin Rime, have a clear message: Measures are needed now.
Nurses rage after statements
Required action
In June 2020, Kjerkol was one of five representatives who promoted proposals in the Storting that the then Solberg government had to make sure to educate enough nurses and specialist nurses.
One of the total of six proposals reads as follows:
“The Storting asks the government to ensure that a sufficient number of nurses are trained throughout the country, and that it is better facilitated with offers of full educational courses with bachelor and master’s education for specialist nurses.”
Here the corona wave strikes back
Another reads as follows:
“The Storting asks the government to prepare a national overview and a binding escalation plan for education for specialist nurses and anesthetists in intensive care.”
No time for investigation
That Kjerkol will now appoint a commission to, among other things, look at the shortage of health personnel, is an unnecessary use of time when you have an urgent need, Laake and Rime believe.
– UNNECESSARY USE OF TIME: President of the Norwegian Medical Association, Anne Karin Rime, is aware that there is an urgent need to train more nurses and doctors to meet the great shortage of health personnel. Photo: Thomas B. Eckhoff / Legeforeningen
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– There are a number of things we already know, and it is, among other things, that we also need a better intensive capacity in a normal time. Even before the pandemic, we had to postpone planned operations due to lack of capacity, Rime tells Dagbladet.
– Now we have to expand and allocate money for education. This should have been done long before the pandemic. We are in the absence of qualified personnel and we do not need a report to know.
Rime is supported by Laake.
– NEEDS ACTION: Chief physician at the Emergency Department at Oslo University Hospital, Jon Henrik Laake, requests action from the Minister of Health. Photo: Private
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– If Kjerkol continues Bent Høie’s policy, where the question of definitions, organization and other things will be investigated, this means a completely unnecessary postponement of the work to improve the capacity of our intensive care units, Laake tells Dagbladet.
– The capacity has been at rest for more than ten years. Even the aging wave has not been taken into account. It hit hospitals in 2006 when the first post-war cohorts passed 60 years. Since then, there has been disproportionate growth in the age groups that make up the majority of patients in our hospitals, including the intensive care units, he continues.
A known issue
On Friday, the message came from Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labor Party): There will be new national measures. The reason is that the high infection rates poses a danger that the health service will be overburdened.
Alerts full review
Leader of the Norwegian Nurses’ Association, Lill Sverresdatter Larsen, recently told Dagbladet that the intensive care capacity already balancing on a knife edge several places. In the intensive care units, the pressure is so great in several places that employees have to work 16-hour working days and up to 70 hours per week.
On Friday, a total of 190 patients were hospitalized with coronavirus in Norway, according to figures from the Norwegian Directorate of Health. Of these, 58 were in the intensive care unit and 28 received respiratory treatment.
With 289 intensive care units, Norway is significantly lower than the average in the OECD countries, and the lack of intensive care capacity has received regular attention during the pandemic. Nevertheless, Norway’s intensive capacity has been a topic for years before the coronavirus put the Norwegian health service to the test.
– Must be taken seriously
Rime emphasizes that you are welcome to study details, but that you can start training personnel, as this takes time.
That’s why it’s urgent.
– Destroys Norway’s reputation
– The number of places is the message. We also need more monitoring places, ie chopped during intensive care, during a normal time, so there is no danger that beds will be available. We need both more beds and more trained nurses and doctors to staff the places, she states.
She adds that she does not doubt that Kjerkol understands the seriousness, but reacts to the fact that the governments – not even during a pandemic – are able to raise health further in the budget.
– This must be taken seriously. Once again, healthcare professionals are asked to roll up their sleeves, but there is a limit to how long people can keep doing it. People no longer just need to hear that they are doing a good job, now a good dialogue is needed with the employers, so that you ensure enough health personnel at work throughout the winter. The time is not right for austerity measures, says Rime.
– No goal to postpone
In an e-mail to Dagbladet, Kjerkol writes that she agrees that the lack of professionals has not been prioritized under the previous government.
– Therefore, we are starting a larger work that in the short and long term will address the challenges. In the short term, we are already proposing NOK 700 million more for the hospitals in the state budget for next year, in addition to NOK 50 million for a recruitment package that will contribute to educating, recruiting and retaining more people in the health services.
She adds that the municipalities will also receive NOK 2.5 billion more in the government’s ‘extra budget’.
– Over a slightly longer period of time, the Health Personnel Commission, with which we immediately began work, will promote measures to train, recruit and retain qualified health personnel throughout the country. Here we want the Medical Association actively involved, writes Kjerkol.
– There is no goal for this government to postpone the work with the challenges the health services face, but we must ensure that trade unions and employers are involved in the work for the measures to work over time. The work should point to measures, not conduct long studies, she concludes.
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