A recent overview from the Directorate of Health shows that the waiting time for health care increased in the first eight months of the year. But in the government’s proposal for the state budget for next year, it is stated in black and white that there is no target to reduce waiting times next year: “It is a target that waiting times in the specialist health service should not increase in 2023. In the long term, the government’s target is that the average waiting time must be less than 50 days”, says the state budget. – The government lacks ambition to reduce the health care queues, says Høyre’s health policy spokesperson Tone W. Trøen to news. CRITICAL: Tone Trøen in the Conservative Party believes the government lacks ambition. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB – At the same time that waiting times are increasing and more and more people are experiencing deadline breaches, the government must reduce effort-based funding in hospitals, abolish free choice of treatment and phase out private actors in welfare. It is the wrong medicine at the wrong time, she continues. Have to wait longer Just under 1.66 million patients were treated at somatic hospitals in the first eight months of the year. This is an increase of almost 3 per cent from 2021. The number of overnight stays, day treatments and outpatient consultations increased from last year to this year. INCREASE: The government’s long-term goal is that no one should wait more than 50 days for treatment. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB But the waiting time also increased, in all sectors. On average, patients have had to wait 65.5 days for health care in the first eight months of the year. It is a long way from the government’s expressed – and long-term – goal of an average waiting time of less than 50 days: In the somatic sector, the waiting time increased from 60.4 to 66.9 days. In mental health care for adults, the waiting time increased from 47.5 to 52.3 days. In mental healthcare for children and young people, the waiting time increased from 52.7 to 57.8 days. Within substance abuse treatment, the waiting time increased from 31.2 to 33.5 days. The proportion of missed deadlines also increased – from 4.9 to 7.5 per cent. Within mental health care for children and young people, deadline breaches increased by 8.3 per cent. What is a deadline breach? The specialist health service must assess all referrals within ten working days. If you conclude that a person has the right to specialist health services, you must set a deadline for when the treatment or investigation must start at the latest. If you do not make the offer within the deadline, there will be a breach of deadline. The specialist health service is based on an individual assessment of the information contained in the patient’s referral. When it comes to mental healthcare for children and young people under the age of 23, a tightening has been made, this patient group must have a waiting time of a maximum of 65 days. But if, based on an individual assessment of the referral, a deadline of 35 days has been set, this is what applies. This is what the Directorate of Health wrote in an e-mail to news. HAD TO REDUCE: Planned operations and other activity at the hospitals were reduced this spring to deal with corona admissions, says the Minister of Health. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB Points to corona Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) says planned activity at the hospitals was reduced this spring to deal with the increase in the number of corona admissions. CORONA: Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) says waiting times have increased partly as a result of the aftermath of the corona pandemic. Photo: André Børke / André Børke – At the same time, there was a very high rate of sick leave in the hospitals. These two factors have influenced the waiting times. We are working on this, says Kjerkol, who emphasizes that patients with urgent needs do not have a waiting period. – But when waiting times increase in 2022, isn’t it very defensive on behalf of the patients only to demand that they not increase further in 2023? – Although waiting times are increasing, more patients are getting help. We must not forget what we have left behind, namely two years of a pandemic and drastic national measures which of course affect the situation today, she says. Demands action The Conservative Party believes that the Labor Party has a dislike for private actors and that this makes it difficult to cut waiting times in the future. The party calls for closer cooperation between the public and private providers. – A collaboration like this gives freedom of choice, shorter waiting times and a variety of treatment options – and that at the state’s expense. The available treatment capacity at non-profit and private companies must be part of the solution, says Høyre’s Tone Trøen. Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) says the government has “promised a settlement with privatization and market thinking in hospitals”. – Then it should not be surprising that we are in favor of removing free choice of treatment, which strengthens private actors, at the expense of the public hospitals, says Kjerkol. Kritisk Kjerkol says the hospitals must still collaborate with private and non-profit actors. – But we are discontinuing free choice of treatment because it has neither reduced waiting times nor made the health service more efficient, says Kjerkol. She points out that the hospitals spent more than NOK 500 million paying private actors through the scheme with free choice of treatment in 2021. This is money that the hospitals now get to keep, she says. Trøen shakes his head at the health minister’s arguments and says Kjerkol does not pretend to understand that many patients have received treatment through free choice of treatment because the capacity in the hospitals has been blown up. – When Kjerkol has no plan for how the capacity in free choice of treatment is to be replaced, it means that patients have to wait longer for absolutely necessary healthcare. It will have serious consequences for patients, says the Høyre representative.
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