Nursing student Benedikte believes there is discrimination in nursing education – NRK Nordland

NRK has previously written about Benedikte Fjellheim in Narvik, who was not allowed to continue her nursing studies because she broke her foot.

Fjellheim broke her foot in the middle of second practice and now has to wait until next year before she can continue.

She herself believes that she could complete the internship even if she was on crutches, and came up with several suggestions for solutions so that she could avoid waiting a year to continue her studies.

Nevertheless, the university said no.

They pointed out that it is EU directives and national rules that make it so.

But the 21-year-old nursing student doesn’t think that’s true.

– I don’t feel seen. All crises are not the same. I think they are quite square and not very stretchy, says Benedikte Fjellheim.

She thinks the study place should have made her situation better.

– I have heard that other universities make arrangements for students like me.

So who is right? Is there a set of regulations that makes all the educations the same, or is there different handling of the rules in different places?

The university

There are 13 educational institutions in Norway that offer nursing education.

NRK has asked them if they have other routines to facilitate practice than UiT.

NRK has not received an answer from everyone, but UiA, Nord University, Molde University and NTNU answer that they would do things differently:

The University of Southeastern Norway (USN) and Oslo Met wrote that they would solve it in the same way as UiT.

All the study centers say that the practical subject has a learning outcome that the students must be able to achieve. It is about hygienic principles and safeguarding patient safety.

– But why is it practiced differently at the various study centers?

The Faculty of Health Sciences at UiS writes that although there is an international standard for nursing education, the different institutions have different organization and different order of practice periods.

– Our experience is that it is more often the possibilities we have together with the practice sites that limit what is possible, rather than the national guidelines standing in the way, write Dag Tomas Sagen Johannesen, head of department for health and nursing science at UiA.

Ministry of Education: – Simulation can be the solution

While the study institutions are not completely in agreement, sState Secretary Ivar B. Prestbakmo in the Ministry of Education is very clear about what the government expects.

He wrote in an e-mail to NRK that pStudents with disabilities and students with special needs have the right to individual accommodation at the university.

This also applies to students with greater intermediate challenges, such as Benedikte.

– We expect the institutions to work actively to ensure equal training and education opportunities for people with disabilities and special needs.

Prestbakmo writes that they have regular dialogue with other countries about issues related to the EU’s vocational qualifications directive.

– This applies, for example, if increased use of simulation in health education can make it easier to carry out practice without necessarily being physically present at a practice place.

UiT has 900 nursing students

Laila Arnesdatter Hopstock, head of department for health and care subjects at UiT, where Fjellheim studied, says that the EU directive provides guidance on how many weeks a nursing student must spend in practice. The university cannot do anything about that.

– Each practice period is set up as a race with cooperation between the practice city and the teaching citysays Hopstock.

This makes it difficult for them to add practice in another period to the one set up for the degree. UiT has 900 nursing students and practice is planned a long time in advance.

– There is a great deal of logistics surrounding access to internships, and planning of the internship studies in collaboration with the internship field is done long in advance of the internship period itself, says the head of the department.

Thinks that facilitation may be related to dropouts

Kåre Rønn Richardsen, vice dean for education at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Oslo Met, says that they had also not been able to provide satisfactory accommodation for a student with a broken foot.

– This is because many of the learning institutions require you to move and have two arms to aim at the same time.

It is also linked to the fact that 50 per cent of the education can be put into practice. It can therefore be a problem to make arrangements so that students who experience something unexpected can finish in the normal time.

– The reason is, among other things, that new students will take over the place in the next internship period.

Richardsen believes there may be a connection between the degree of opportunities for facilitation and dropout.

– Perhaps especially for students with small children and people with reduced work function who find that the framework becomes impossible in practice to combine with their life situation and work function.

Fjellheim in Narvik will now come to work for a year, before continuing with her studies. She won’t fall off. But she agrees with Richarsen that there could be fewer dropouts if the study was more organised.

– They do it differently everywhere. Then it will only be a game of chance if you have chosen the right university when the crisis hits.