– I am very worried because the politicians believe that self-determination is the most important thing in psychiatry, but I think that the biggest legal security challenge in Norway today is that seriously mentally ill patients do not receive treatment that could have helped them, says Randi Rosenqvist to Nettavisen. She is one of Norway’s foremost forensic psychiatrists.
– There has been a dramatic cutback in the specialist health service’s efforts for the seriously mentally ill. Today we are left with a third of the offer we had 30 years ago, emphasizes Rosenqvist, who is speaking on a general basis.
Also read: The police want a forensic psychiatric examination of murder suspects in Otta
She believes that people who are psychotic should get better help, and that this can prevent some of the murders and acts of violence that happen in Norway every year.
– The number of murders committed by the insane remains consistently low. This has been investigated several times. But the vast majority of murders in this country are committed by people with mental disorders, and not by the harmonious, says Rosenqvist.
Facts about murder cases in Norway in 2022
January
* 1 January: 28-year-old Kjetil Andre Østhus is stabbed to death outdoors in Haugesund in connection with the launch of New Year’s rockets. A 20-year-old Briton and a 23-year-old Norwegian are charged with complicity in murder. There should not have been any connection between the person killed and the accused.
* 8 January: The 69-year-old Swedish woman Sukanya Banglek is found dead in a home in Lier in Viken county. A Norwegian man in his 40s has been charged with murder. The two must have known each other from before.
Mars
* March 1: Lisa Iren Karlsen (40) is found dead in a home in Grue in Innlandet county. A 30-year-old man has been charged with murder. The accused and the dead were lovers. Ten days after the murder, the accused pleads guilty to murder. According to the autopsy report, the woman died from knife wounds.
* 4 March: A man in his 50s is seriously injured in a knife incident in the car park of the Vestsiden shopping center in Loddefjord in Bergen. He is taken to hospital, where he dies from his injuries. The man’s son in his 30s is arrested at the scene. The man is accused of murdering the father and causing bodily harm to the father’s wife, who is also in her 50s.
* 21 March: Rabeel Arshad (36) is found dead in an apartment in Rugveien on Manglerud in Oslo. The woman’s husband, who reported the death, is arrested and charged with murder. The couple had children together. According to the autopsy report, the woman was killed with a knife.
* 28 March: Najah Alsharaa (42) and her daughter Khadijeh Saed (20) die shortly after arriving at hospital following a violent incident in Kristiansand. The women’s husband and father, a man in his 50s, is charged with murder. All those involved are of Syrian origin, and the daughter was a Norwegian citizen.
April
* April 4: A woman in her 60s is found dead at midnight in a home in Bærum. Her son, who is in his 30s and was involved in a traffic accident in Lier in the South-East police district some time earlier, is charged with murder.
* 5 April: 41-year-old Linn Merete Andersen dies of extensive injuries after being found by paramedics in a home in Noresund in Krødsherad in Viken county. It was the woman’s roommate, a 39-year-old man, who called the police just after midnight. He is charged with murder.
* 27 April: A man in his 20s is seriously injured in a stabbing at Trones in Sandnes. The incident happened in a residential area. The man is sent to hospital and dies on 30 April. A man in his 30s has been charged with murder.
June
* 25 June: Kåre Arvid Hesvik born in 1962 and Jon Erik Isachsen born in 1968 are killed when 42-year-old Zaniar Matapour opens fire on the nightclubs Per på kørket and London pub in central Oslo. Ten people are seriously injured and eleven slightly injured. Matapour is charged with murder, attempted murder and acts of terrorism.
July:
* 1 July: 62-year-old Olav Mathillas is found badly injured in a home on Bjerkaker in Tromsø when the police respond to an ongoing incident of violence where a knife was used. He later dies from his injuries. His 26-year-old son is charged with the murder.
August:
1 August: A married couple in their 80s (born in 1934 and 1939) are found murdered in an apartment complex near the center of Otta in Gudbrandsdalen. A man born in 1977 who reported to the police has been arrested and charged in the case. The police are not aware of any relationship between the victims and the accused, beyond the fact that they lived in the same neighbourhood. The police initially stated that it was a stabbing.
Source: NTB
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Rosenqvist believes that the debate about coercion has gone so far that psychiatry does not dare to follow up patients, this combined with few places, often leads to patients being discharged before they have finished treatment.
Read also: The Norwegian Health Authority has received a notice after the double murder in Otta
– Mental health care has less long-term capacity for the seriously mentally ill. Patients who are discharged are left to municipal care. This is not sufficient. In a few cases there is violence and murder, says Rosenqvist, and adds:
– We have to realize that there are a number of people with serious mental disorders, who cannot take responsibility for themselves, and who need more help than the municipalities can give them. I think we should give them that. Not to avoid murder, but because they are exposed to poor treatment and that relatives are exhausted.
– Not immune to murder in Norway
– Although it can be frightening for the public with the murders that take place in this country, it is the case that there are few murders in Norway compared to other countries. We must not forget that, says homicide researcher Vibeke Ottesen at the University of Bergen to Nettavisen.
– We are not immune to murder in Norway. But it is expected that there will be a higher proportion of those who commit murder in Norway who suffer psychologically, than in countries with higher murder rates than we have. That’s because the homicide rate for those who struggle mentally does not vary that much between countries. Since we have few murders in Norway, a larger proportion will then be committed by those who suffer psychologically, says Ottesen.
She agrees with Rosenqvist:
– In order to lower the murder rate even more in Norway, we need to look at the mental health services and the services provided there.
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