– It is a shame that it is as it is, says Roy Otto Solvang from Mosjøen. On 1 April, the flight routes and flight prices on the much-discussed FOT routes were changed. Overnight, ticket prices were halved. The intention was to help businesses and local communities. But what was supposed to make life easier for people in the rural areas has had the opposite effect. As many feared. Because if you live in Helgeland, and depend on a visit to the University Hospital of Northern Norway, you have to be patient. – We have a travel route that is so heavy, long and tortuous that it is more natural for a part of Oslo to use UNN. It provides an easier travel route straight from Gardermoen to Tromsø. Then we could have used St. Olav’s hospital in Trondheim, says Solvang. Let’s take an example. – Meaninglessly, news has checked possible flight times on 1 August. The flight to Widerøe takes off at 06.40 in the morning. And points the muzzle south. Just under an hour later, the plane lands at Trondheim Airport, Værnes. It is only about half an hour away from St. Olav’s Hospital. But the patient is going to the University Hospital of Northern Norway. The flight north departs at 08.20 and lands in Tromsø at 09.55. The return from Tromsø is only 17.55, and then with a stopover in Bodø. Thus, you are not back in Mosjøen until 20:10, a 13.5-hour journey for a consultation. And then transport to and from the airport, plus attendance well in advance of departure, is not included. On one of his journeys, Roy Otto Solvang spent 24 hours at the doctor’s consultation, when the plane had technical problems. – It makes no sense for us to go all the way to Tromsø when we have a university hospital approximately 40 miles from here, at St. Olavs, says Solvang. Bernt Nerberg, advisor responsible for Patient Travel in the regional health organization Helse Nord, agrees. – It is a long journey to treatment at UNN, and when the flight offer is relatively poorly adapted, an already long travel day becomes even longer. And several of those patients, especially those who live on the islands, have to spend the night in many cases, he says. Helse Nord recently sent a letter to the Ministry of Transport in which they discuss the challenges: In the letter, they are clear that the changes in the flight offer have not worked as promised. In an ideal world, patients should be able to be at UNN by 10 a.m. – and return after 4 p.m. At the same time, overnight accommodation is far from favorable for the patient. If the patient must be admitted to a hotel, only NOK 683 per day is covered, which is far from enough for a hotel stay in Tromsø. – It has become much worse after the flight offer was changed, says Elin Finne Pedersen. The University Hospital of Northern Norway accepts people from all over the country, despite the fact that St. Olav’s in Trondheim is closer to the patients in Helgeland. Photo: Fabian Ubeda Helse Nord: – It has become more difficult Once or twice a month she travels from Mosjøen to Tromsø. – I respond well to the treatment. That’s why I choose to do it. But I am very tired after the travels. I don’t think the hospitals really know what it’s like. She has several times experienced long and difficult journeys with stopovers at small airports without food on offer. If she’s lucky, she gets an appointment before 10 in the morning. She then has the right to leave the day before. – But then you won’t be able to cover everything. I think it’s cool. I’m lucky to be able to afford it. Because you have to pay for the hotel. With the living allowance, you get around NOK 1,000 from patient trips, but a hotel room in Tromsø in high season can quickly cost NOK 4,000, she says. Ideally, she would have liked to have been treated in Trondheim. – Think how easy it could be to just take the train. The University Hospital of Northern Norway accepts people from all over the country, despite the fact that St. Olav’s in Trondheim is closer to the patients in Helgeland. Photo: Fabian Ubeda Bernt Nerberg in Helse Nord is open about the challenges surrounding patient transport. – We have had greater challenges in getting patients to and from treatment in Northern Norway, says Nerberg. He is an adviser with responsibility for Patient Travel in the regional health organization Helse Nord. – The flight offer in Northern Norway is limited, and it has become more difficult after the changes that were made now from 1 April. They are completely dependent on having a flight service that makes it possible to get patients to and from treatment within a reasonable time. But it’s not that simple. 95 incidents A major consumer of aircraft is Nordlandssykehuset. Last year, the health organization accounted for 30 per cent of all patient journeys by air in the country. 55,000 single journeys, according to the letter from Helse Nord. Primarily, we are talking about flights from Lofoten to Bodø. And it’s not painless. A survey shows that in the first week of June there were 95 incidents that caused problems for patients. 8 patients stated that the appointment was canceled (probably means that they will have to set up a new appointment) 29 patients had to ask for a new appointment 23 patients were given extra accommodation before the scheduled appointment. 25 patients received an extra overnight stay after the treatment. 23 patients chose another transport solution. Widerøe acknowledges challenges. Christian Skaug, commercial director at Widerøe, says that they are constantly considering whether they can do something about the offer. Photo: Widerøe AS Full flights – We have bottlenecks in the network, which the healthcare institutions also struggle with. There are very full planes there. But there are still four out of ten seats available on the short-haul network, says Christian Skaug, commercial director of the company. – Which bottlenecks? – We especially see the areas between East Finnmark and Tromsø. We see a number of bottlenecks between Bodø and Lofoten, and Bodø and Stokmarknes. And also from Helgeland into Trondheim, which sometimes experiences very full flights at times of the day and week. – Can Widerøe do something about these bottlenecks? – We can do what we can do within the tender rules. We can try to twist the production and look at how we can handle the production in a different way. Now we have run this tender for a couple of months, and we have received quite a lot of information about how the market reacts to a 50 percent cut in price. It is a very big change. We are looking at some individual changes, but we are not ready to go out with it in the markets now. The Ministry of Transport is responsible for the FOT routes. In an e-mail to news, they write, among other things, that the current offer must be allowed to work over time, before they can decide on the need for any changes. Read the full response from the Ministry of Transport and Communications “Patient trips are an important user group of the FOT routes. In the preparations for the purchase of today’s FOT routes, thorough processes have been carried out back to 2022. Among other things, there have been separate rounds of input and a separate hearing by an external transport specialist investigation. The health institutions are involved via the county councils in all input rounds before the announcement of a new contract period. Before determining the final route programme, the operators have also obtained views from, among other things, municipalities, county councils, airport operators and healthcare organizations – among other things to best adapt the timetables to local wishes, within the framework of the agreements. As a result of this dialogue, among other things, a change was made to the routes that were initially supposed to facilitate day trips between Helgeland and Tromsø. The original change led to very early morning departures from the four airports on Helgeland, and in consultation with, among others, the Helgeland Council and the Arctic Circle Council, Widerøe chose to apply to be allowed to deviate from the requirement for an early landing in Bodø. The connection to Tromsø is now mainly solved with a transfer in Trondheim, which was also the case in the previous agreement period. The Ministry of Transport has a good dialogue with the Ministry of Health and Care about the patient travel offer, and we are aware that the healthcare organizations have a dialogue with the airlines that operate both FOT routes and commercial flight routes in Northern Norway, and that they follow the situation closely throughout the country. The offer must be allowed to work for some time before we can decide on any need for changes. In the short term, the Ministry of Transport and Communications follows up inquiries and other issues in the continuous contractual dialogue with the FOT operators – within the framework of the agreements, allocated funds and available aircraft capacity. With regard to the route offer in the longer term, we plan to carry out a study that will look at how the state can further develop and optimize the regional air route offer in Norway within the budget framework that is used on the FOT routes today.” Published 08.07.2024, at 11.48
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Helse Nord reacts to problems with Widerøe’s flight offer in the north. – news Nordland
