The Norwegian Directorate of Health said 172 municipalities reported challenging or critical staff shortages. But only five of them had reported critical deficiencies – and none of them have it anymore.
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The pressure on the health services in the municipalities may determine the measures in Norway after 14 January.
In a contingency meeting with FHI, the state administrators and the regional health authorities last Wednesday, health director Bjørn Guldvog pointed out that Norway must have “sufficient national measures” to level out an impending wave of infections.
One of the reasons was that around half of Norwegian municipalities had reported “significant challenges” with access to health personnel.
He pointed out that 172 municipalities had reported “challenging or critical” access to personnel and critical competence.
– This week, 172 municipalities reported to the Norwegian Directorate of Health that access to personnel and critical competence is challenging or critical. We take this seriously, also said the Minister of Health to VG last week.
VG requested access to the overview. There were five municipalities that had reported a “critical” shortage, and all now say that the situation has improved.
The municipalities had responded to this
The Norwegian Directorate of Health mapped the shortcoming in a survey in early January. Among other things, they asked the municipalities to report whether “access to personnel and critical competence” was “good”, “challenging” or “critical”.
- 158 municipalities answered that they had good access to health personnel and critical competence.
- 167 reported that they had challenges.
The five municipalities that responded that the situation was “critical” were Moss, Øygarden, Sør-Varanger, Alver and Ullensaker. On Monday, everyone told VG that the situation is no longer critical.
– We were in a period of both high infection pressure and high sickness absence due to other seasonal diseases and the RS virus. Now the situation has improved somewhat and the situation is no longer critical, but there is still a lot of pressure after we have been in the pandemic for so long, says mayor Tom Georg Indrevik (H) in Øygarden municipality to VG.
Here you can see what the municipalities answered in the Norwegian Directorate of Health’s survey:
– The staff shortage applies especially to health, but we have also had problems within school. Especially before Christmas, it was difficult to keep all activity within school and education going. We took the consequences of this and overall considered the situation to be critical, he says.
Ullensaker hopes the liquor ban will be lifted
– Now some action has been taken, and we do not consider the situation as critical. It was especially in infection detection and vaccination that there was a shortage of staff, says mayor Eyvind Jørgensen Schumacher (Labor) in Woolen things.
Schumacer now hopes that the national liquor ban will be lifted. He justifies this by saying that the burden of action has been great for the industry in his municipality and urban Eastern Norway for a long time.
– I hope that it will be abolished now, at least so that the restaurant industry can serve a few glasses of wine with the food. That will mean a lot to the industry, he says.
–Moss and Elves: No longer critical
Moss says that the municipality on Monday submitted a new situation report in which they describe the situation as vulnerable and challenging, but no longer critical.
– We have for several months reported that the supply of health personnel, institutions and home personnel has been challenging, but in December it was significantly worsened. Then there was more than 25 percent absence in some departments, says mayor Hanne Tollerud (Labor) in Moss.
–ShoppingThe mayor says that they have had a high sickness absence in both the health and upbringing sector since before Christmas, but that the absence has decreased from last week to now.
– We no longer have a critical staffing situation, but have now reported that it is challenging in all respects, says mayor Sara Sekkingstad (Sp) in Alver municipality.
– The fact that we report that it is critical does not mean that it is a crisis. The elastic is stretched very far over a long period of time. We were very close to having to take down the health service, but we did not get there, says the Alver mayor.
Sør-Varanger says they had a critical lack of competence in infection tracing beyond week 52. Now they describe it as demanding.
– We had several cases of infection and several positive tests. But now we have reorganized positions internally in the municipality and bought a person 100 percent from their work tasks, says mayor Lena Norum Bergeng (Labor) in Sør-Varanger.
Nakstad about when measures can be removed
When asked how many municipalities must report that the situation is good before there is no need for national measures anymore, assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad answers:
– It is not the number of municipalities but how many people live in them and what situation they are in that is most decisive. As of today, many operations at the hospitals are still postponed and many populous municipalities report challenging access to personnel and expertise, says Nakstad.
He says that many municipalities are struggling to recruit staff for vacancies to staff emergency rooms, health institutions and home services.
This means that the personnel who are employed and must ensure a sound service offer are significantly burdened. As soon as the disease burden decreases and the operation of the municipal and state health service is normalized, there will be little need for national infection control measures, Nakstad answers.
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