Mentally ill Anne Wold lay dead for three weeks in her municipal apartment before anyone discovered it. She was emaciated and there was no food in the apartment. Wold had not received social security, the bank card had expired and the power was about to be shut down. The woman was missing a bed, a mailbox and money. After the documentary “Mystery my sister” was broadcast on news Brennpunkt, the State Administrator in Nordland opened a supervisory case. One year and seven months later, the conclusion is clear: Brønnøy municipality has violated the Health and Care Services Act on a number of points. It appears in a report from the State Administrator in Nordland that news has been given access to. Nav Brønnøy has also been investigated, but there the State Administrator has not found documentation that indicates that a crime was committed. The decision is final and cannot be appealed. NOT GOOD ENOUGH: Brønnøy municipality has been investigated by the State Administrator, and they have come to the conclusion that the municipality has violated several points of the Health and Care Services Act. Photo: Ellen Benedikte Kasnes / news Almost two years after the complaint was sent, the conclusion is on the table of brother and relatives, Rolf Arve Wold. However, the long treatment time has been an extra burden, he says. – One thing is that this has been a burden from 1998 with my sister who has walked around in this way in a small town. Then she dies under dramatic circumstances, and a lot of gloom comes up. The state administrator, for his part, says that it has taken a long time due to the pandemic, and several rounds of obtaining documentation. RELATIVES: Rolf Arve Wold has fought a long battle to get the cards on the table. At home in the hallway is the picture of him, little sister and mother. Photo: Ellen Benedikte Kasnes / news Should have offered help The state administrator assumes that Brønnøy municipality was aware that Anne Wold had a mental illness. This was the reason why she had a municipal residence. She should therefore have been offered health care after a number of reports of concern. The state administrator also believes that the municipality should make an ongoing assessment of whether Wold was competent to give consent, as mental health is not static. In the period 2015 and until her death in 2019, the municipality received repeated reports of concern and complaints from her neighbors, as well as caretakers and those who operated the home. The real estate department reported to ROP (Drug and Psychiatry Service), Nav and the service office several times, but there is no documentation that anyone has followed up on these complaints. Crushing report Since the patient did not receive social security from Nav or follow-up of ROP, no one addressed the reports of concern, the decision states. – The municipality has a duty to ensure necessary and justifiable services to those who reside in the municipality. In this case, we believe that the municipality had so much information about the situation that they should have done something different. Marianne Pettersen Bygdnes, Acting Deputy Director of the Health and Guardianship Department at the State Administrator in Nordland. Photo: Kåre Riibe Ramskjell / news This is what Marianne Pettersen Bygdnes, Deputy Director at the State Administrator in Nordland, says. The state administrator concludes that the information that emerges is of such a nature that the municipality should, by the winter of 2019, implement measures to clarify whether Wold needed health care. – They should have followed up on the reports of concern that came, Bygdnes states. LIVING NORMALLY: Anne Wold majored in social anthropology at Blindern, and worked as a librarian before she became mentally ill. She turned 64 years old and died in 2019. Photo: Roar Berg-Hansen / Privat Admits failure Municipal director in Brønnøy, Frank Nilsen, says that the municipality lies flat. – This is a confirmation of what we knew before, that the public sector has totally failed in this case here. – So you take self-criticism? – We take and we have taken self-criticism. We agree with the points and that this could have been avoided if the public team had done what it was supposed to do. The state administrator has asked the municipality to improve its routines, something the municipality is now doing. – We have prepared a routine for reporting and following up on reports of concern for those who live in Brønnøy. We must implement it in a better way. We will learn from the mistakes, and think more holistically in the public sector, both municipality and state. The state administrator will follow up the municipality and ensure that the new routines are implemented. Anne lay dead for three weeks in her municipal apartment before she was found. She had neither bed nor food, and weighed only 44 kg. The brother is looking for answers; what happened to my sister?
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Brønnøy municipality has broken the law in the processing of Anne Wold – news Nordland
