Professor: Nurses and doctors are in the process of deceiving both municipalities and hospitals, several media reports this week. But it is about the authorities deliberately facilitating privatisation.
See: Professor: – Nurses and doctors are in the process of deceiving both municipalities and hospitals
Correspondingly in NRK.
Doctors and nurses leave their permanent positions, take up work in a temp agency and offer half of their workforce at double the price, said Terje P. Hagen, professor at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics at the University of Oslo, about the extensive use of temps in the healthcare system at a KS conference earlier this week.
The municipalities’ residents need much more services than the municipalities can offer. This is of course due to municipal finances, and that the municipalities cannot offer working conditions that the employees are satisfied with. Then the blame is of course placed on the employees who opt out of public employment. Then, of course, a concerted effort from the municipalities is needed to get rid of this “disorder”.
KS had a conference this week with the title: Sustainable health and welfare services – from knowledge to actionwhere they presented the challenge like this.
(Photo from the KS conference)
Here, reference is made to how temporary agencies attract employees with lucrative conditions. Temporary agencies can offer better payment and more flexible arrangements.
When we know how health personnel in the public sector describe their everyday life, it probably won’t take much to offer better conditions. It is no wonder that the municipalities then have to spend multiple millions on temporary workers hired from temporary agencies in order to get the operation going.
It would probably be much better to offer better working conditions.
Municipal director Kjell Hugvik in Bodø municipality says that the municipality spent NOK 30 million on temporary workers in 2021, while this year it could be NOK 120 million.
State Secretary Ellen Rønning-Arnesen (Ap) believes that the municipalities must start with a coordinated effort is necessary, because this is not something a single actor can do alone. When we see how the rental culture is now developing, it is a political task for us to also contribute to helping the municipalities with good solutions, she says.
https://www.forskning.no/arbeids-ntb-sykepleie/professor-sykepleiere-og-leger-er-i-ferd-med-a-lure-bade-kommuner-og-sykehus/2361510
This conference focused on how the municipalities will solve their challenges with a growing group that needs help, an increased elderly population/the elderly wave, and a lack of professional personnel.
Successful results were shown where admission to a nursing home was delayed, with the help of relatives and technology.
Something called “sustainable staffing solutions” was also presented after 4.5 hours where the topic was how to retain and recruit employees, and here some measures were presented, but it was expressed by here that KS and the trade unions did not completely agree.
Reorganizations and more projects were of course necessary, but what the employees’ organizations have pointed out for a long time was not particularly touched on or taken into account based on what I could see in this conference.
We wrote in November about the lack of follow-up on the National Audit Office’s report on staffing challenges here at steigan.no.
The health institutions: there are still major staffing challenges four years after the National Audit Office’s previous report, a lack of staffing can have serious consequences for the service offered to patients.
It has been four years since the National Audit Office presented a report which showed that healthcare institutions have major staffing challenges that can have serious consequences for patients. Now came the follow-up survey and still the staffing situation in hospitals has not improved. It can still have serious consequences for patients. Many still work part-time, sickness absence has risen and turnover is at the same level.
The National Audit Office’s report that came out on 26 November 2019 summarized the main findings as follows:
Healthcare organizations have major challenges in recruiting and retaining nurses, midwives and specialist nurses
Among nurses and midwives, two out of three work part-time.
Staffing challenges affect how employees experience the quality of patient care
The health institutions do not make sufficient arrangements to create a full-time culture and retain nurses, midwives and specialist nurses
The regional health organizations and health organizations are not making good enough arrangements to ensure sufficient recruitment of nurses, midwives and specialist nurses.
In several articles here on steigan.no (use keywords health) we have written what both the medical association and the Norwegian Nurses’ Association think is needed to solve the staffing challenges we are facing – it might be a good idea to listen to them before the public sector loses even more.
In autumn 2022, a group in the Norwegian Medical Association went out and pointed to measures to retain the GPs we have. They wrote, among other things:
While over 200,000 Norwegians are without a GP, all GPs have a deficient public offer for access to knowledge and professional updating. The time is ripe to help GPs in every way we can.
The Norwegian healthcare system is dependent on a well-functioning GP system. The entire population of Norway has become aware of this through the ongoing crisis in the scheme. But the GP scheme does not only need the recruitment of new colleagues. GPs also need the conditions to be put in place for good, efficient and professionally sound treatment. A small but important contribution will be to ensure solid dissemination of up-to-date, accessible and practically oriented knowledge.
We wrote this in July 2022:
On its website, the Norwegian Nurses’ Association writes something about what is needed to meet this need:
“The large shortage of nurses in Norway challenges both patient safety and the goal of an equal health service throughout the country. In order to meet the needs of patients and society, nurses must have attractive pay and working conditions. This will ensure recruitment, mobilize the workforce reserve, and ensure that the health service retains qualified staff. Nurses must therefore be offered full-time positions, health-promoting working time arrangements and competitive wages.”
We also know that 1 in 5 trained nurses do not work in the health sector. A survey carried out by Sykepleien in 2021 also shows that 72% of nurses in the municipalities have considered quitting.
Staffing that is not in accordance with the needs and salary are the reasons given by the nurses.
In addition to the shortage of nurses, we also have a shortage of doctors, the shortage of GPs is large and in March 2022, 150,000 Norwegians were without a GP.
GPs have long reported how bad the contracts for GPs are and that this is decisive for recruitment and the reason why many leave. It was not until 30 June that the parties agreed on this year’s normal tariff. The normal tariff regulates the economy and framework conditions within the GP and contract specialist scheme.
It is great that health personnel do what is best for them, one would think that with such a great shortage of professional personnel in the public sector that employers would have gone to great lengths to recruit and retain them. But the loyalty to the budget framework is probably the reason why these employer representatives are in the jobs they are in. But it will be expensive, the services will not improve and we are the ones affected.
The “tripartite cooperation” is praised so much in this country. Is it just bragging?
Tags: employees choose working conditions portrayed trickery
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