The boundaries are beginning to open for those who may indicate that they have been vaccinated or have immunity. But what happens to those who cannot refer to the corona certificate?
The corona certificate is digitally available on Helsenorge.no where you must log in with a bank ID. But it is not a given that everyone has just that.
Some people with disabilities do not currently have the opportunity to use a bank ID or code chip on their own, and are therefore automatically barred from using Helsenorge’s website.
The corona pass is rolled out
One of them is 25-year-old Per Simensen Linge, who has Down syndrome. Per’s mother and guardian, Ulrikke Linge, believes that he and other people in his group are “triple-discriminated”: He does not get a bank ID, he does not get a vaccination passport and he loses the opportunity to participate in society.
– It also applies that he, or I as guardian, can not go in to check answers to corona tests as easily. He can not sign himself, and that has many consequences, Linge tells Dagbladet.
Per has not yet received the first dose of vaccine, because he is afraid of the vaccine.
– It is a typically difficult situation for him. He has to wait in the hallway, and then he gets worried about whether something dangerous is waiting behind the door. We tried to get him vaccinated for an hour and a half, but in the end we had to give up.
Shut out
People like Per are in a situation where they are excluded from digital communication and digital functions on public public services, because they do not have access to a bank ID.
It is normal for a guardian to manage all personal and financial functions by logging in to their own pages. However, this does not apply to health data.
– Per does not have the opportunity to sign anything electronically, because he systematically does not get access to digital services, so there are many things he is cut off from, Linge explains.
She is now desperate that the authorities have not come up with a solution for those who do not have a bank ID.
– The problem is that now that they open the borders for everyone else who has been vaccinated, Per does not get the opportunity to travel. It must be possible to make some exception rules for this group.
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– His joy in life
Per currently lives in a municipal housing with assistance in Nesodden, but he is dependent on his parents to have a meaningful leisure time.
Now he does not have the opportunity to go on holiday, and the best thing he knows is to travel.
– We have a cabin at Koster in Sweden, and they will let in vaccinated now. Both me and my husband have been vaccinated, and for us there is no alternative to go to the cabin without Per and leave him alone. That is the acute concern of the summer. He depends on being able to travel with us, she says.
Per loves to travel, and the parents take annual holiday trips with their son. Just before the pandemic broke out, the family went to London, where he was allowed to visit the Harry Potter Museum.
TRAVEL HAPPY: Per Simensen Linge (25) wants to travel. Here he was in London to visit the Harry Potter Museum just before the pandemic broke out. Photo: Private.
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– It is his joy in life to travel. It’s something he’s looking forward to all year, so it’s bad for him, and it hurts that he is deprived of the opportunity for vacation, after a year with less social contact and few activities. The most important thing for me as a mother is that he is well, says Linge and adds:
– The municipality does not have a holiday offer, so the holiday with us in the immediate family is incredibly important to him.
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Sure for a long time
It is not only the corona certificate that is issued for people with disabilities. Not being able to sign digitally, when society is evolving in an increasingly digital direction, is a challenge. This is the opinion of Hedvig Ekberg, Secretary General of the Norwegian Association for the Mentally Handicapped (NFU).
People who do not have the authority to sign with a bank ID do not have the opportunity to shop digitally or have payment functions such as Vipps.
– During the pandemic, there are several situations where you could only pay digitally. Many people suddenly refused to accept payment other than Vipps, and then it is difficult just to buy a bowl, Ekberg tells Dagbladet.
PROVOCATED: Hedvig Ekberg, Secretary General of the Norwegian Association for the Developmentally Disabled (NFU) is frustrated that people with disabilities do not have access to online solutions. – Extremely provocative for us, she says. Photo: SAFO / Norwegian Association for the Mentally Handicapped.
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She explains that the banks require that you must be able to manage your bank ID yourself, and she probably thinks that there are many who are not aware of the problems it creates for many with disabilities.
– Lack of access to web solutions is extremely provocative for us. We see that this has been a problem for several years. That is why we raised it six years ago with the Minister of Digitalisation, and even earlier with the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness, since they are the ones responsible for guardianship, says the Secretary General.
Frida (25) has not been in Norway since 2019: – Sad
She believes, like Linge, that the authorities discriminate against people with disabilities when they set requirements to present the digital corona certificate.
– It is not good, she says and adds:
– I think it is not an argument that they have not thought that this could be a problem, because they have known about it for so many years, says Ekberg.
Alternative solution
The system is such today that guardians do not have access to other people’s health data on their own side. This is due to rules for privacy, says State Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Care Services, Erlend Svardal Bøe, in an e-mail to Dagbladet.
He further says that on Helsenorge.no you will be able to see information that has been registered about the person in the health and care service. This is confidential health information, and an exception to the duty of confidentiality is required for such information to be disclosed to others. Such an exception would, for example, be the consent of the person concerned, according to Bøe.
– For persons who do not have consent competence, and therefore cannot give a power of attorney themselves, a solution has been established so that relatives can obtain a power of attorney with confirmation of lack of consent competence from the treating doctor. This also applies to children between 16 and 18 years, Bøe writes.
– Disturbing
Bøe informs Dagbladet that they are in the process of preparing an alternative solution for issuing a corona certificate on behalf of non-digital residents.
The solution means that residents can call a customer center and request a printout of a corona certificate and have it sent to a registered address.
In the first instance, this service will only apply to residents who have either a Norwegian birth number or d-number, and the printing option will only apply to vaccine status and a history of illness. The solution will be ready at about the same time as when the EU certificate arrives, according to Bøe.
– We fully understand that people want to have access to their corona certificate. We have tried to facilitate this so that those who are not digitally active on Helsenorge.no, can create a power of attorney to let others have access to the services they themselves have agreed to, says the State Secretary.
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