On Sunday afternoon, all employees at the AMK center in Oslo were sent a message from the management. “To all employees with a message about critical information about the operational situation at AMK” begins the message, which news has been allowed to read. It also states that the center has had challenges with staffing “over a long period of time”. A crisis team has now been set up. “As an employer, we have no more tools in the treasury and the order will have to be implemented, the message says.” This means that the employer can force the employees to work. Critical situation Oslo University Hospital confirms the contents of the message. Clinic manager Stephen Sollid tells news that there is a complex reason for the staffing challenges. – We have received some grants to employ people, but we do not get enough people to take jobs with us. This means that we are struggling to get the guards that we need to staff 113 in particular. – It has escalated in the last week and now this weekend, where we have been sitting with staffing that is approaching untenable. Measures to order people to work are therefore being considered. – If it is not good enough, we must look at the possibility of asking other AMK centers in the eastern region for help in taking over parts of our area of responsibility. Stephen Sollid is head of the prehospital clinic at OUS. Photo: Hanne Høyland / news 12 hours without a break Employees at AMK have been summoned to an information meeting at Ullevål on Monday. news has spoken to one of them. The person is anonymized in this case, but news knows his identity. – It has been going on for a long time, that they are unable to staff. There is a lot of absenteeism and they are struggling to recruit. People quit right away. – There is a very large penetration. There are few experienced people at work. We who work there have tried to speak up for a long time, but we are not always heard. The person says that he wakes up every single day to messages about guards not being covered. He can’t remember the last time they were fully staffed. – Now the days are so busy that you hardly get any breaks. An entire working day often goes by without a break. At AMK, this applies to shifts that can be up to 12 hours long. – It’s something we don’t really want from the employer. Precisely because of the strain it is to work in AMK, we believe it is inappropriate, says clinic manager Sollid. He confirms that they have had several redundancies recently. More than they can staff. In the capital, there is a lack of staff at the central office to handle inquiries to 113. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB Report: The response is not always sound In July, the State Administrator released an inspection report on AMK Oslo. The results were disappointing. Among other things, it emerged that the response to calls to 113 is not always sound. “This leads, among other things, to callers with serious urgent medical needs not always receiving the right health care at the right time, so that permanent damage and/or loss of life can occur,” writes the State Administrator in Oslo and Viken in the report. There is a requirement that 90 per cent of 113 telephones be answered within 10 seconds. For long periods, this requirement is not met. Trade union representative: One of the toughest places to work – We are well aware that there is a high level of sickness absence there due to high work pressure. The AMK center in Oslo is, in my opinion, one of the toughest places to work, I’m afraid. It is always very busy and you are constantly working with people in crisis. That’s what Bjørn Wølstad-Knudsen, enterprise union representative at OUS for Fagforbundet, told news on Sunday evening. They have been aware of the staffing problem for a long time. – We have been asking for something to be done about the problem for a long time. He says the management has created several positions, but that the positions are not filled. What is the background for that, he says, that the management must answer for themselves. Bjørn Wølstad-Knudsen is a company representative at OUS for the Trade Union. Photo: Berit Roald / NTB Also the chief shop steward at the pre-hospital clinic for Delta, Eivind Engstad, says this is a known issue that has been discussed many times with the management, both at AMK and with the clinic management. – There are too few at work. In relation to the number of incoming calls and in relation to the number of assignments to be distributed. And it has been for a long, long time. Works long-term – It’s a problem that can’t be solved overnight. It is about the fact that those who sit in the AMK central are personnel who are not easily available. They need special skills. They have to be trained, and that takes time, says clinic manager Stephen Sollid. – When you have a workplace that has been known for a long time to have major challenges, it also creates challenges in recruiting people. – Does ordering people to work make it better? – No, it certainly doesn’t. It helps us in the acute situation we are in now. We absolutely have to take measures to ensure that the population receives a safe offer. Then, unfortunately, we have to resort to that order to get things going. At the same time, work is being done to improve the situation in the long term. Sollid says the inspection report from the State Administrator pointed to challenges they knew existed, but that it gave them documentation to be able to start working on this in a good way. In the past six months, several measures have been initiated, among other things to improve the work processes and the physical working conditions.
ttn-69
Staffing crisis at AMK in Oslo – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
