Lars Svanholm is managing director of Trondheim’s largest funeral home, Svanholm & Vigdal Gravferd.
He is the fourth generation of funeral consultants, but none of his predecessors has experienced a rise in line with the one he is experiencing now.
Svanholm estimates that the funeral home is handling 30% more deaths this year than last year, when the death rate in Norway was already unexpectedly high.
– We haven’t had such an increase since the company started in 1922, Svanholm tells TV 2.
FILL UP: Coffin rooms at funeral homes are sometimes filled to the brim, according to Svanholm. Photo: private
Use garage
The consistently high demand had unusual consequences for Svanholm and the agency’s 26 employees.
– For us, it created huge challenges with everything from fridge capacity to accessing the ceremony rooms, so there was some waiting time for survivors, says Svanholm.
At times there has been such a high demand that they have had to use garages and other back-up solutions such as cold storage. This has previously only been common in acute crises.
GARAGES: Garages like this are used as stretchers when demand is high. Then the cars are deported and cooling systems are installed. Photo: private
– We have crisis preparedness if there are a large number of deaths in a short time. It’s used in plane crashes and other major accidents, but now we’ve had to use it with ordinary fatalities as well, says Svanholm.
I don’t think the peak has been reached
According to Svanholm, survivors risk waiting 15-20 days between death and burial because churches and other ceremonial halls are crowded.
– The grieving process can be characterized by the fact that the grieving has to wait longer than normal. Some people are disappointed when they might have to wait an extra week to have a funeral, but they understand the problem, says Svanholm.
FILL UP: Coffin rooms at funeral homes are sometimes filled to the brim, according to Svanholm. Photo: private
Although there are busy days, he doesn’t think the peak has been reached.
– We’re a little nervous about the upcoming flu season and hope people understand they may have to wait a bit. When they’re in the middle of a death, that’s not the kind of message they want to get.
TRAVEL: These are busy days for funeral director Lars Svanholm and his employees. Photo: Svanholm & Vigdal Gravferd
Stands out
Mortality in Norway was unexpectedly high in 2021, determined Institute of Public Health (FHI). Then the death rate had been low the year before, due to the infection control measures of the pandemic.
Statistics Norway (SSB) keeps statistics on the number of deaths throughout the year. Senior consultant Anders Sønstebø of Statistics Norway says this year’s figures will exceed last year’s by a good margin.
– The wave of aging is starting to catch up with us, and so it’s not spectacular that there are a little more people dying, but there are more people dying than we could have thought and hoped for, Sønstebø tells TV 2.
UNUSUAL: Senior consultant Anders Sønstebø of Statistics Norway calls the increase in deaths unusual. Photo: SSB
In the first ten months of the year, ten percent more people died nationwide than last year. It’s an increase it has never seen before.
In Trøndelag, the increase is even greater. A full 16% more died there this year than last year.
– It’s quite unusual, says Sønstebø, who has no idea why.
FHI analysis
While an increase in the death toll is easy to determine, more analysis is needed to assess whether the overall death rate is higher than expected.
– To assess whether there has also been an increase in mortality, it is necessary, among other things, to assess the size and composition of the age groups that together make up the population, says daytime director Hanne Løvdal Gulseth to FHI to TV 2.
He says FHI is working to look into the matter in more detail now.
– If older age groups in a population increase in size, more deaths will be a natural consequence without mortality necessarily increasing, Gulseth says.
