In Christmas 2021, a 59-year-old man was found dead in his kitchen in a construction site in Ørsta. Now the state administrator has concluded that Ørsta municipality breached the requirement for sound health services. The man was severely emaciated and weighed only 36 kilos when he was found. The state administrator believes that the municipality did not do enough to prevent this. They write that they cannot find any assessments in the patient record about possible solutions and individual support measures specifically with regard to nutrition. Critical of the help he received The family believed that the death could have been avoided if the mentally ill man had received better help. He had actually been close to death in 2020 as well. Then the bank card stopped working and he couldn’t buy food. After reports of concern from neighbors and family, the emergency services went out. They broke the window and entered the house. There they found an extremely underweight man. He weighed 37.5 kilograms before he was admitted to hospital. After his stay in hospital, he spent several weeks in a hospital to put on weight. A health team from the municipality visited him at home a number of times after admission. In December 2021, the man died of cardiac arrest, severely underweight. The family is critical of the help he received and believes that the healthcare system should have forced him into hospital. The man had cut off all contact with both family and friends many years before and isolated himself. – There is no doubt that my brother did not get the help he needed. Health personnel had been notified many times both by neighbors and family, says Asbjørn Langstøyl. He hopes that now the municipality will learn from the case. Asbjørn Langstøyl is critical of the help his little brother received and believed that he could have been alive if he had been forcibly hospitalized. Photo: Remi Sagen / news – Should have extended further Now the municipality is being criticized by the State Administrator because they did not take action after the hospital stay. Based on the man’s history, they could expect that he would have new, major health challenges. We believe that the municipality should have gone further to ensure that the deceased received appropriate health care in the period after discharge from the nursing home, the inspection report states. They also conclude that the health and care services in the municipality have not been sufficiently aware of possible changes in the patient’s competence to consent. In the report they write that the municipality lacks a conscious attitude to capture the development of the patient’s situation where there was a danger to his life. Ørsta municipality has previously replied that the man was assessed as competent to consent and that they could not force him to get help he did not want. He had a clear idea of how he wanted to live his life and that they had to respect that. Not documented well enough Mayor of Ørsta, Stein Aam, says that the municipality will now study the inspection report thoroughly. Photo: Idun Aalbu Rasmussen / news The state administrator has also opened a supervision case against the doctor. The conclusion there is that she did not break the Act on proper health care, but she did break the requirement for adequate record keeping. The state administrator believes that the doctor has not sufficiently documented in the patient’s medical record how she has assessed the man’s competence to consent. Mayor of Ørsta, Stein Aam (Sp), says that they will spend time getting to know the report and what went wrong. – It is both regrettable and a little dramatic from the municipality’s point of view, says Aam. Ørsta municipality must now give feedback on how they will continue to follow up on concerns for vulnerable residents. news has previously told about a mentally ill woman in the municipality who had the medication left on the doormat because the employees were afraid of acting out. The state administrator invites the municipality to a meeting in the autumn where they will be asked to present the plan.
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Ørsta municipality broke the law when an emaciated man was found dead in Ørsta – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
