In summary, Bergen municipality is changing the rules for holiday offers for adults with developmental disabilities, which has led to criticism. 21 out of 161 applicants were refused participation in the summer camp, and 19 of these have participated in the camp for several years. The municipality has changed the rules for those with epilepsy, and the document with the new rules is dated after the refusal was sent out. Health and care council Marte Monstad (Frp) confirms that she will do all she can to ensure health personnel are present at the camp, so that as many as possible of those who have been refused can go to camp. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAI. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – I have always had fun at summer camp. Sometimes I’m so happy that I can’t sleep the night before we travel, says Maren Bull-Tornøe Aldal (34) from Bergen. For the past 15 years, she has participated in summer camps for adults with developmental disabilities at Bømlo in Sunnhordland. This has been a popular offer run by Bergen municipality for many years. She beams when she reminisces about the good atmosphere, and the time she was voted disco queen on the dance floor. – I like to dance, she says and smiles. But then she gets sad. On 15 May, Maren was told that she cannot participate in the summer camp this year. 21 out of 161 applicants were rejected. 19 of them have participated in the camp for many years, and several have epilepsy. Among them is Aldal. – It is completely understandable that she is suddenly refused to participate, says her father Dag Arthur Aldal (67). New rules dated after refusal Bergensavisen has in several cases written about the strong reactions against Bergen municipality regarding refusal of summer camps. Now news can tell that the municipality, without saying anything, is changing the rules for those with epilepsy. In addition, the document with the new rules is dated after the refusal has been sent out. For Maren Bull-Tornøe Aldal (34), the summer camp at Bømlo was the highlight of the year. Photo: Oskar Rennedal/news Previously, people who had not had an epileptic seizure in the past year were allowed to attend the camp. Now the municipality has removed the exception, and everyone with epilepsy falls into the no category. The father says that the daughter has not had a seizure for at least 20 years. – She has never had a seizure either, says Aldal. This is the case For several years, Bergen municipality has provided a holiday offer to adults with developmental disabilities “without the need for health personnel, awake night watchmen, family, acquaintances or professionally trained companions during the stay. It is a prerequisite that a companion does not need training to be able to provide assistance to the participants”. In December, the city council in Bergen wanted to scrap the entire scheme with holiday offers for developmentally disabled people over 18 years of age. Instead, they would change it to a subsidy scheme, where individuals can apply for subsidies for holiday travel. In January, the city council decided to continue the existing scheme with holiday offers, and rather try to include even more users. At the same time, the city council must consider “establishing an organization-based holiday offer for adults with developmental disabilities where organizations can apply for grants to organize and arrange holiday trips”. Also in 2019, the municipality changed the criteria for participating. It hit the developmentally disabled person with diabetes, who needed help to insert insulin injections. In 2017, employees in the municipality were told not to inform the developmentally disabled that they could apply for holiday support. Even then they change the rules. The municipality owes to “time pressure” Health and care council Marte Monstad (Frp) in Bergen has received a lot of criticism for the municipality’s change of practice this year. She has maintained that she has not changed any criteria for who can participate. She says that it is not the criteria that have changed, but that the “medical assessments” have changed. news has gone through the document on the rules for the summer camp. They show that the bullet point about epilepsy has changed. Dag Arthur Aldal interprets this to mean that the criteria have changed after the decision to refuse was made for his daughter. They wonder when the rules were changed. The city council refers to municipal chief physician Trond Egil Hansen to answer why and when it has been done. He has not answered news’s questions about this. – The criteria has always been that they should not need health personnel or awake night watchmen. People with epilepsy will always have a certain risk of new epileptic seizures, Hansen wrote to news in an e-mail. Communications manager Endre Hovland for the Norwegian Health Authority has subsequently responded to this. He says the aforementioned decision is due to “time pressure” in the application process for the summer camp. – The point in time referred to is the point in time when the criteria were formally registered in the municipality’s quality system, writes Hovland. Trond Egil Hansen is the chief municipal doctor in Bergen, here from a press conference during the pandemic. Photo: Kjell Jøran Hansen Exemptions may have been removed after the refusal The rules for participation in the summer camp have been in place since 2019, according to the city council’s department for the elderly, health and care. Among other things, they establish the following: Users who have “daily/regular epileptic seizures” or “extensive medical needs” cannot receive a holiday offer. A holiday offer is given to participants who have epilepsy with seizures “if it has been at least 1 year since the last seizure”. But in the refusal from the municipality to Maren Bull-Tornøe Aldal, they did not emphasize the extent to which she has had seizures in the past year. Just that she has epilepsy. “Based on your diagnosis of epilepsy, you have a health condition that indicates a need for assistance provided by healthcare personnel during your stay. You therefore unfortunately do not qualify for participation” On 22 May her mother, Kirsten Bull-Tornøe Aldal, complains about the refusal to the municipality. On 28 May, she receives an answer from the municipality. They do not accept the complaint and forward the case to the Municipal Complaints Board. “in this case, the refusal is based on the holiday candidate’s diagnosis of epilepsy. This is a diagnosis that indicates a need for assistance provided by healthcare personnel during the stay” Attached to the email, Aldal will not be sent the rules from 2019, but a document which in the list of attachments is called “Criterium for participation in holiday stay”. It is “valid from 24 May”. There, the two points about epilepsy from 2019 have been reduced to the point that “Users with epilepsy” cannot get a holiday offer. The exception for those without seizures in the last year has been removed. HARD CRITICISM: Health councilor Marte Joan Monstad (Frp) promises to do what she can to ensure that as many people as possible go to summer camp. Photo: Silje Rognsvåg/news Father hires legal help – We have not received any justification from the municipality that we understand. What they write is based on criteria that did not apply when the decision was made, says father Dag Arthur. He hired lawyer Jan Magne Isaksen to speed up the processing of the complaint. Isaksen reprimands the proceedings. – In my opinion, the proceedings are subject to some criticism, Isaksen says to news and adds: – In my opinion, this is an abuse of authority. Emphasis has been placed on other conditions than what the criteria called for. This has been attempted to be disguised as a “medical assessment”. For the same reason, it is also unfair discrimination. The result is both discriminatory and noisy. Lawyer Jan Magne Isaksen has been hired by Aldal in the complaint case. Photo: Agnieszka Iwanska / news – They judge a whole group Tom Tvedt, leader of the Norwegian Association for the Developmentally Disabled, is shocked at how the municipality treats Maren and the other adult Bergen residents with developmental disabilities. – Unfortunately, discrimination occurs in many places in Norway. But what I have seen in Bergen is the worst ever, says Tvedt. – I don’t understand that they dare. They would never have dared to treat the elderly in this way. He reacts to the fact that the municipality seems to have changed the criteria after the refusal was sent out. And that it has been done ahead of the processing of the appeals against the refusal, which will probably not happen until 1 July. – This is heartbreaking. Here, all the parties in Bergen city council must roll up their sleeves and sort this out, says Tom Tvedt, leader of the Norwegian Association for Development Homes (NFU). Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB The city council asks the city council to clean up The head of the control committee for Bergen city council, Per-Arne Hvidsten Larsen (V), believes that the proceedings before the city council that news is now showing are “shocking”. – I expect that the city council will not wait for complaints to be processed, but will go into the cases on its own initiative and correct mistakes. I expect that the city council will not wait for the appeal to be processed in the tribunal, but will go into the cases on its own initiative and correct mistakes that have been made. He advises the city council to clean things up quickly, and does not rule out an investigation of what the health city council has done in the matter. But first he wants to see how the matter is discussed in the Health and Social Affairs Committee next week. The Pensioners’ Party and the Labor Party also ask the city council to quickly clear up the issues. The city councilor responds Health councilor Marte Monstad (Frp) moved out on Tuesday to meet all the criticism. Now she will try to send health personnel to the camp, so that as many as possible can still go to camp. – We are doing everything we can to ensure that they still get to travel this year, so that it is perceived as fair. But then it is still important that we send healthcare personnel, because the medical advice still stands, says Monstad. Read the full response to the health council and the municipal superintendent in Bergen below. The municipality and the city council respond Health councilor Marte Joan Monstad (Frp) disagrees that it is the criteria for the holiday scheme that have changed, and points out that it is the first five bullet points in the 2024 document entitled “These can participate” that the politicians have maintained to. These have not changed from the 2019 document. But among the twelve bullet points under the title “The holiday offers cannot accept the following users”, the epilepsy point has changed, as shown above. She calls this medical advice. Although the entire document is entitled “Criteria for participation in holiday offers for adults with developmental disabilities”. To the question of why the new rules are dated after the refusal has been sent out, the health board believes that there is a technical error, and that it is the 2024 rules that were used as a basis when the refusal was adopted. The city council refers to municipal chief physician Trond Egil Hansen for detailed questions about why the rules for those with epilepsy have been changed, and when it actually happened. Hansen does not answer news’s questions, but writes in an e-mail: “The criteria has always been that they should not need health personnel or awake night watchmen. People with epilepsy will always have a certain risk of new epileptic seizures. With long-term seizure freedom, the risk of new seizures will decrease, but never completely disappear. The risk will increase with changes in circadian rhythm or other deviations from daily routines. Epileptic seizures that do not receive prompt and correct medical treatment are potentially fatal. Access to health personnel will then be decisive.” Published 12.06.2024, at 12.57 p.m
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Bergen refuses developmentally disabled people with epilepsy to go on summer holiday – so they change the criteria for going – news Vestland
