District Norway is crying out for nurses. But what do the municipalities do when they cannot get hold of the people? They hire from staffing agencies. In October, news wrote about substitute nurse Amalie Nielsen, who cost Fauske municipality NOK 170,000 for one month. During the next decade, for the very first time, there will be more elderly people than young people in Norway. One in four Norwegians will be older than 67 years old, one in ten over 80. Senior advisor at KS Konsulent AS Håvard Moe predicts the municipalities’ downfall if there is no change. – I find it difficult to see other solutions than a large-scale centralization of the municipal service offering. The municipalities must make major changes to meet the wave of elderly people, Moe believes. – It just gets more and more expensive. Relatively speaking, nurses work less and less, so each individual nursing hour produced becomes more and more expensive, says Håvard Moe. Photo: Olav Røli / news – Many young people have traveled to central regions to get an education. Of these, far too few travel back again. Unfortunately, we will not discuss the consequences of this for the service offer. – Now we believe that we can move the workforce to the user. The question must be turned on its head. We have to move the user to the workforce, says Moe. In Bodø municipality, municipal director Kjell Hugvik suggests doing as Moe says. Wants to close nursing home: – Krise Hugvik wants to close Furumoen nursing home in Misvær, which is over an hour from the center of Bodø. This year, Bodø municipalities are expected to spend NOK 325 million more. The municipal director’s proposal for next year is that operations must be reduced by NOK 375 million. Municipal director Kjell Hugvik believes that new and modern nursing homes are more efficient in operation. According to the plan, 10 places will be reopened at Sølvsuper nursing home in Bodø in 2026. Photo: Eilif Aslaksen – We are in a staffing crisis. This year, the municipality is using NOK 100 million more to pay out for overtime and temp agencies than we would have needed if we had got access to regular staffing, says Hugvik. The nursing home that is proposed to be closed has 20 places and 35 permanent employees. In addition, the municipality must hire temporary workers to fill the rotation. So far this year, the nursing home has hired temporary workers for NOK 4.5 million. – To operate efficiently, we need large buildings with many employees. Small units vulnerable to recruitment problems and find it more difficult to operate efficiently in the event of absences and the like. That’s what Arne Myrland, director of the health and care department, says. Arne Myrland believes that larger units and centralization are necessary to meet the wave of elderly people. Photo: Benjamin Fredriksen / news According to Myrland, there have been major problems recruiting permanent employees to Misvær. Neither relatives nor employees find it strange. The ministry: – Municipalities have freedom State Secretary Ellen Moen Rønning-Arnesen tells news by email that the government’s goal is to ensure good, safe and equal services across the country. Nevertheless, the municipalities themselves can decide on their own residents. – The municipalities have the freedom to organize the services in the way they think best meets local needs and requirements. It is of course a prerequisite and expectation that this is done in cooperation with the citizens and that there is good involvement of elected officials. – Does the ministry support Håvard Moe’s thinking about shifting the user to the workforce to a greater extent? – There is no solution for the entire country. What increasingly applies to everyone is the access to qualified personnel in the health and care service. Therefore, we must work strategically and long-term to recruit, develop and retain professionals in our joint health and care service. The State Secretary concludes by saying that she believes that a wide range of services in health and care can be solved digitally, and that it will be possible to tailor the services to the users. Not the first time – It’s not so attractive to move here when the job is proposed to be closed, says Mette Schaer, who is a nurse. It is not the first time that the nursing home has been proposed to be closed down. The last time was in 2014. Both in 2022 and 2023 it was proposed to make extensive cuts. Hilde Johanne Skaget believes the village should remain. – The way they are doing now, it seems that they want to depopulate the village. If they close down the nursing home in Misvær, there is so much that will be closed down in its wake. Photo: Private – It is a reasonable crisis if they close down in Misvær, Hilde Johanne Skaget believes. She is worried about her mother, Ragnhild, who has dementia and lives in the nursing home. – If she is moved to Bodø, she will be living much further away from us. She is in the last phase of her life and should be safe and well. Overview of the distance between Bodø center and Misvær. Ragnhild herself has helped fight for the nursing home and collected money to buy furniture and equipment when it opened in the 1980s. When Ragnhild is now to reap the fruits of her work, the nursing home is in danger of being closed down. Feeling discouraged – It was as expected, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. People are discouraged. You start to get tired, says Mette Schaer. She reacts to the proposal to close down the nursing home, and believes that the director of the municipality has not considered the societal costs of closing down. – It has major consequences. They say that no one should lose their job, but for many commuting is not an option. Schaer and Skaget believe that a closure of the nursing home will be the nail in the coffin for the village. Larger municipalities In order to get hold of the nurses, the municipalities entice with favorable working arrangements and better wages. However, Professor Terje P. Hagen at the University of Oslo believes that the recruitment packages are not profitable in the long run. – It becomes easy cannibalism. You recruit from each other. When Helse Nord receives an extra half a billion, it will be used to strengthen its own staffing. It covers the municipalities in Northern Norway. Hagen believes Moe’s proposal is drastic. But at the same time you can understand that development is going this way. – It is drastic to move people and services. The key is to create larger municipalities so that you can build up environments that have both high competence and great capacity. Terje P. Hagen, professor at UiO. Photo: Øystein Horgmo, UiO There is a gradual centralization of the population over time, which makes it very difficult for District Norway to recruit expertise, says Hagen. – It is difficult to maintain 20 nursing home places in a village with 350 inhabitants. The population is on the way down and then it is not natural to move the patients that way. I therefore understand that the nursing home is being moved to more central parts of the municipality. Published 16.11.2024, at 10.58
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Willing to move dementia sufferer Ragnhild (86) out of the village and into the city – news Nordland
