– It’s just completely hopeless – VG

Updated less than 40 minutes ago

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Sylvia Paulsen (35) arrived at 5 o’clock on Wednesday morning, wise from injury.

– The first time I waited three hours before I had to go to work. Second time I was here for four hours. The third time I came at eight o’clock, when it was a hundred before me. I gave up after eight hours.

When VG meets her on Wednesday, she has waited a total of 18 hours in the queue.

The Oslo woman works full time as a social worker in a care home. The passport she is to pick up is for her daughter Bella (12). They are going on holiday in England in a week, plane tickets and hotels are arranged.

– A counter is open for us who only need to pick up a passport or have an emergency passport. They say they can not put in more resources. It’s just completely hopeless. They know there is a queue, but do not care.

Sylvia Paulsen says that they processed five an hour, the last time she was at the police station.

– Everyone is equally frustrated. We do not know if we should laugh or laugh, says the woman who stands first.

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The waiting time to get a passport is at least seven weeks. Time to order a passport or national ID card is scarce.

100,000 Norwegians waiting to get a passport – and many of them fear that the summer holidays will end.

High demand and lack of electronic chips for passports are the cause of the chaos. But many are critical of how police organize the queue.

Nanthan Ananth (48) lined up at a quarter past six with his wife and son to pick up their passports. Last Monday, he arrived just after eight o’clock and got queue number 77.

– Then I just went. We have to work, we do not get time off from work, says the assistant nurse at Stovnerskogen nursing home.

The class was booked in February. On April 21, the family had an appointment at the passport office in Drammen. Ananth chose to pick up the passports, because it is reassuring to get them in hand.

– We residents must be a little more awake and check when the passports expire. I think the police are doing their best, says Ananth, who hopes they can go on holiday to Sri Lanka in July.

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Anders Blix is ​​also in the queue for the third time. The first time he did not get a queue once.

– Yesterday I was here ten at eight and became number 14. After a month and a half they had reached number six. Then I had to go to a meeting at work, says the 56-year-old.

Blix is ​​going on holiday to the Netherlands and admits that he is to blame, who did not discover in time that the passport had expired. Now he wants an emergency passport, which only applies to the trip in question.

– Today I expect to be processed, at least, but do not know if I will get the passport.

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Karoline (9) plays clarinet in Smågardistene at Stabekk school and is looking forward to a trip abroad with the corps to Bornholm.

– Even though she is only going to Denmark, the corps leadership says that she must have a passport when she travels alone, explains Karoline’s mother Marthe Lytomt from Bekkestua in Bærum.

During the winter holidays, she managed to secure today’s appointment at the passport office.

– I thought it would go well when we got an hour a month before Karoline will leave, but now it does not seem very promising. It is a great pity that it has become like that, says Lytomt.

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Anne Bruun-Olsen (58) has an appointment for an ordinary passport on 22 June. But she wants to secure herself with an emergency passport, so that the sailing holiday in Croatia in July becomes something of.

– It is absolutely terrible that the passport should be the obstacle, when we finally have the opportunity to live and travel and enjoy ourselves, says Bruun-Olsen.

She hopes to reach the counter before the meeting at work at ten o’clock.

– If not, I’d rather spend the cramped day Friday standing in line. I have no one but myself to blame, the passport expired in September.

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At the bottom of the hill before the doors of the police station open at eight o’clock, there are two people who know each other from the maternity group.

– We have lots of raisins, biscuits, an iPad and a surprise, says Rebekka Gitlestad (35), who will arrange passports for Jakob (2) and Olav (4).

Her family is going on an autumn holiday to Turkey, while her friend Marit Lomundal Sæther (36) needs a passport for her son Asgeir (2) before the trip to Italy in early July.

– We should probably have been out in a better time. It is natural that there will be a queue, when everyone should have a passport at the same time, says Sæther.

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