Patient focus supports the Hammerfest public meeting

Good people. Thanks for the invitation to appeal in connection with the Hammerfest meeting this week. It is regrettable that the event collides with the fact that we will deal with over 10 health cases in the Health and Care Committee at the Storting on June 4.

These cases are treated so late on the day that they will not be voted on until Thursday 5 June at. 1500. And then I do not reach Hammerfest.

But a small written appeal for reflection or inspiration I would like to share with you. My appeal is from the speeches I held on May 26 this year from the Storting’s pulpit. The cases we dealt with were how to recruit and retain staff at the hospitals. This was one of what I said from the Storting’s pulpit.

The hospitals in Norway are for the patients. But without employees, we are unable to strengthen the patients’ right to recover. Patients depend on talented employees. An employee at Finnmark Hospital told me a short time ago that “the development in the Finnmark Hospital’s business area has changed dramatically in recent years. We have never had it as bad as now. It’s going to get worse if the responsible authorities are not taking hold. ”

Isn’t it that in this hall we are responsible authorities?

Thursday, June 5, there is a meeting in Hammerfest. The theme is the reduction and downsizing of the Finnmaks Hospital. Patient focus and I are here at the Storting as a result of meetings and protest trains. We have warned against exactly what is happening at the Finnmark Hospital’s departments, and that it could become the reality throughout Finnmark. I am terribly sorry that it has become a reality. We at Patient Focus understand the employees at the clinic in Hammerfest and the staff at Finnmark Hospital and stand with them in the fight.

Political editor in iFinnmark, Frode N. Børfjord, wrote an article before the weekend about what he named the very critical management of many of the human medical resources at Finnmark Hospital. In his article, the editor also refers to a written question I asked the Minister of Health in April. The question read:

« If it is true that a large proportion of nurses at the Intensive in Hammerfest are gone shortly, either because they are approaching retirement age or ending for other reasons, then the Minister agrees with the union representatives who believe that the limit has passed on what is a safe and predictable health service of high quality for the high quality of the population in Finnmark? »

The problem of retaining and recruiting employees is well illustrated by the union representatives at Finnmark Hospital and what they say to the media. Company representatives for the superiors, Christel Eriksen, told Altaposten on May 23 that she with concern records what is going on in the Finnmark Hospital health enterprise. Eriksen further said according to the newspaper: We need an employer we can trust. Unfortunately, confidence is quite thin. And «  » The reorganization « of the Finnmark Hospital is in full swing at Hammerfest hospital, and in the future it will be fully reorganized in Kirkenes and Alta. » Enterprise representatives ask if the health enterprise wants its own employees well.

The whole of Finnmark is today on foot – all the patients. And yes, the employees are not traveling too! Socially, this is a problem, in addition to costing the shirt for patients both financially and health.

Senior physician and union representative, Torben Wisborg, at Hammerfest Hospital tells Media in Finnmark that the crisis in the hospital is dangerous for the patients. According to union representatives, the nurses are scared and angry, while doctors are very concerned. « Patients have reason to be concerned about their own safety. »

I have asked many questions about the negative development of health in Finnmark for many years. From 2017 to 2021, I questioned former Minister of Health Bent Høie from the Right, and from 2021 to the present, as a parliamentary representative for patient focus, I have directly nominated by the people on the basis of poor health services, asked many written questions to the Minister of Health from the Labor Party. The answers from all three health ministers from 2017 – to the present day have been the same. Both Ap and H do not sound the health trusts to the professionals on the floor.

Good people in Finnmark, think about the following: If we do not lifter the eyes and treat each other’s world -class health services – then we all lose. And we won’t?

Thanks for your attention. Good luck with the event – as a parliamentary representative for patient focus from Finnmark, I and we are in patient focus together with patients and staff in Finnmark. Without each other, all of Finnmark loses.

Irene Ojala

Storting representative for patient focus

Member of the Health and Care Committee