Today, the board of Helse Nord is gathered to consider managing director Marit Lind’s controversial proposal about the direction of the future hospital structure in Northern Norway.
This is done on the basis of Health and Care Minister Ingvild Kjerkol’s (Ap) order to the northernmost of the country’s four health organizations to assess a precarious need for changes in the so-called “division of functions and tasks”.
Time for action
DISCUSSED: CEO Marit Lind has presented a controversial proposal for the hospitals in Northern Norway. Photo: Daniel Berg Fosseng
In the chronicle Helse Nord must change because we lack professionals Director Lind addresses the challenge with “thousand unstaffed positions, long waiting lists, many missed deadlines and a university and regional hospital that lags behind in research and modern personalized medicine”.
At the start of the board meeting, Marit Lind repeated the Minister of Health and Care’s order, followed by chairman Renate Larsen’s challenge to the board to put on the “future glasses”.
– Everything points in the same direction, and it is time for action. Doing nothing is not an option, said Larsen.
She added that, in the first instance, a professional and guiding structure must be decided for the work that is now to be done.
– Then we will become more specific over time, said the chairman.
There are many who now fear for the preparedness and the future of the local hospitals, and the commitment ahead of the board meeting has been great.
– Helse Nord is planning to demolish the local hospitals and the district medical service, says head of the National Center for District Medicine, Anette Fosse to NRK.
Together with the medical associations in Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, and dozens of municipal doctors in the region, the center has sent an open letter to the board of Helse Nord, asking them to reject the report on a new division of functions and tasks for the hospitals.
So far, over 200 doctors have signed the petition.
Not sure about the board
Political editor in Nordlys, Skjalg Fjellheim, stands in one comment question of whether the board of Helse Nord is at all capable of coming together to carry out the task of reforms.
“It is so much, much easier to learn from each other, make colloquium groups with all the mayors and municipal doctors all the way from Pasvik to Hattfjelldal, and continue the old quarrel about postcodes. But who wins by closing their eyes and not accepting the realities?
One thing is absolutely certain. It is not those who live in Northern Norway, the part of the country that risks appearing to have self-harm as a specialty,” writes the editor.
The case is updated.
