A year-long hospital dispute led to a new joint hospital for Nordmøre and Romsdal now being built at Hjelset outside Molde. As a result, Kristiansund will lose several functions when the new building is ready in two years’ time, almost an hour’s drive away. Already in 2014, a report came out which said that there could be significant environmental weathering at the “losing hospital”, but it also proposed a number of measures to help avoid this. Last year, the maternity ward in Kristiansund was closed for good, almost three years before the new hospital is ready to take over. While on medical bedsides, around twenty nurses have quit in the past year. – It is a complete crisis. A lot of people dropping out and no one to replace them, and it will eventually affect patient safety, there’s no doubt about that, says Anette Olsen, local trustee at the medical bedside post at Kristiansund hospital. Plastillitsvald Anette Olsen believes that bonus schemes are needed to motivate nurses to want to work in her department. The health authority does not want that. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news Didn’t have time to take a bathroom break Olsen says that the employees did not have time to go to the bathroom or take a lunch break, and that in principle one cannot have a life outside of work. The nurses are aware of the constant responsibility for so many patients who should be distributed among several. They have appointed six new nurses in the past year, but half of them have also resigned. No one applies for the job advertisements that are out there. The hospital employed four healthcare workers and three assistants to relieve the nurses. – It’s broken. Some cried and others expressed it with anger. It leads to a sad working situation and working environment, says Olsen. – What do those who quit say? – They say that the workload is too great. They know that the management is not taking the situation seriously. In two years, a new hospital will be ready at Hjelset outside Molde. It will also become the main hospital for Kristiansund and Nordmøre. In 2014, a risk and vulnerability analysis commissioned by the Norwegian Health Authority was carried out. It pointed to a high risk that the professional environment at the hospital where they experience being shut down could deteriorate. They suggested an extensive package of measures, which they believed could provide good opportunities to steer clear of such weathering. The ward is still overcrowded. There are 30 beds in the medical inpatient unit in Kristiansund. Nevertheless, they had on average 6 per cent more patients than last year. They have long struggled with a large number of elderly people who are ready to be discharged, which the municipality does not have room to accommodate. – It has been a continuous challenge which may have caused us to find ourselves in that situation, says head of department for medicine and inpatient care, Monicha Isaksen. In addition, she is well aware that there is a shortage of nurses throughout Norway. – It is disturbing for us as employers to hear that employees feel this way. That is why we want to look at how we can make it more attractive to be on bed rest, says head of department Monicha Isaksen. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news – It is challenging to get applicants. We always have job adverts out, but the last two times we haven’t had any applicants for nursing positions. We will look at what we can do differently to recruit, says Isaksen. Among other things, they are working on a project with the occupational health service, trust authority and protection representative to find possible solutions. Feeling forgotten The report from 2014 thought it was moderately likely that the hospital would experience reduced recruitment, that personnel would quit and that the number of patients would increase. The consequences were considered major. Follow-up that the many measures proposed in the report are in demand all the way, according to the chief union representative in the NSF at the hospital, Kari-Anne Thygesen. – We do not feel that anything has been done. We have been calling for it all along, because we have felt that we have been a bit forgotten here in Kristiansund, says Thygesen. Kristiansund Hospital is located on Nordmøre in Møre and Romsdal. Photo: Marius André Jenssen Stenberg / news Helseføretaket replies that in the last two years they have given educational grants, invested in new equipment and introduced locally placed rent. – It is not correct to say that nothing has been done, and there are certainly things we could have done differently. The most important thing for us is to look ahead and what we can do to achieve success with SNR Kristiansund and SNR Hjelset, says outgoing CEO of Helse Møre og Romsdal, Øyvind Bakke. Øyvind Bakke, outgoing CEO of Helse Møre og Romsdal. Photo: Terje Reite The safety representative at the emergency department does not think the measures are good enough either, because she believes there is nothing to hold staff until the new hospital is ready. – People are desperate, bored, and actively looking for other jobs. People are unsure whether they want to work in health at all in the way they are treated now, says protection representative Cindy Bøe Golmen. Journalist Eirik Haukenes has close family who work at the medical bedside post, and therefore has not worked with anything that touches the bedside post directly.
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– There is a complete crisis – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
