When the perpetrator killed five people in Kongsberg in 2021, he had long ago avoided health care of his own volition. He didn’t want help. As a result, the overall health service lost track of how ill he really was. It became life-threatening. Left to his own devices Espen Andersen Bråthen did not want help and was thus left much to his own devices. Photo: Cicilie S. Andersen / news The psychiatric experts have previously concluded that Espen Andersen Bråthen suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. As early as 2005, he was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Later, he was subject to compulsory mental health care for a period. But from 2019, he himself believed that he did not need treatment. A new report from the National Commission of Inquiry for the Health and Care Service, Ukom, states that the perpetrator at Kongsberg was allowed to go under the radar and was left to fend for himself. He himself did not realize how ill he was, and the communication between the police, next of kin, GP and the municipal health services was far too poor. Pål Iden is director of the National Commission of Inquiry for the Health and Care Service. Photo: Arild Eskeland / news – It is our clear recommendation that the communication between the agencies must communicate better, says director of Ukom, Pål Iden, to news. – This of course applies not only in the tragic incident at Kongsberg, but in all cases where a person with a serious mental illness can become violent. – The individual services for a patient can be as good as they want, but it doesn’t help if you miss the whole. One must look at patients’ continuous need for treatment. It is too easy to let go when one health service refers to the next. Prior to the Kongsberg murders, it was the whole that did not work, says Iden. Want to learn lessons Municipal director Per Morstad sits at Kongsberg and recognizes that the municipality must improve on cooperation. – It is easy to see that we could have done this better before the tragic murders, and now we are looking ahead where we have this high on the agenda, says Morstad. He also acknowledges that the topic is difficult when a patient resists treatment. – Should we have been tougher? Could we use coercive measures? It is easy to look back, but we must learn from what we were not good enough at. I can promise that, says the municipal director. – The whole thing slips away In the evaluation work after the murders, the state administrator acquits the health services. The perpetrator received proper health care, the conclusion states. But Pål Iden in Ukom thinks it’s too simple: – That the individual services in the health system are individually good does not help when the whole disappears, says Iden. Here it was the totality towards him who later became the perpetrator as a slacker, he believes. The murders in Kongsberg shook the local community. Photo: Cicilie Sigrid Andersen / news
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Poor cooperation on psychiatry and health services prior to the murders in Kongsberg – news Oslo and Viken – Local news, TV and radio
