Chief physician asks Helse Nord for professional focus in PCI – NRK Troms and Finnmark

At the end of May, the board of Helse Nord will decide whether cardiac patients in the north will still be offered treatment with PCI in Tromsø and Bodø.

The case has stirred the emotions of several people.

Now senior physician and professor of cardiac medicine at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Terje Steigen, is asking Helse Nord to emphasize the professional arguments and look away from politics.

– My wish is that you manage to have an overall perspective on this, and that you manage to take the medical-professional arguments into account and avoid the political rivalry that we see around this now, he says.

– For the health of the inhabitants of the whole of Northern Norway, and for professional development to proceed as well as possible as well.

It was in 2017 that it was decided that a PCI center should be established at Nordlandssykehuset in Bodø.

At the time, it met resistance from the doctors at UNN in Tromsø. They believed that the region was best served by only one cardiac centre.

Suggests changes

Now an expert group, appointed by Helse Nord, has proposed changes.

PCI in Bodø is more expensive than expected, and has not resulted in any health benefits, according to the report from the group.

They therefore suggested that PCI in Bodø should either be managed from UNN or closed down.

In the professional communities in Bodø, on the other hand, the aim is to expand the PCI offer to a 24-hour offer. They also suggest that a responsible third party can have the power to define and lay down guidelines for the professional collaboration.

They highlight the University Hospital in Oslo as an example of such a third party.

– No professional justification

Political editor in Nordlys, Maja Sojtaricbelieves this is a strong symbolic matter, where the division in Northern Norway becomes very visible.

– The whole problem here is that Helse Nord did not overlook politics when it was decided that the center in Bodø should be established. So the fact that politics has come to this decision in the first place – in 2017 – has really littered large parts of this debate.

Sojtaric claims that the reason why the PCI center was established at Nordlandssykehuset was to focus on what was then called perceived security.

– There was no professional justification then either, she says.

Thinks existence may be at stake

The editor believes that the outcome of the PCI case will say a lot about Helse Nord’s ability to solve larger cases in the future, such as establishing a cancer center and strengthening the neonatal intensive care unit.

– If Helse Nord fails to settle this case in a proper way, then Helse Nord’s entire raison d’être will be at stake.

Helse Nord will not comment on the matter now.

Communications director Skjalg Fjellheim tells NRK that they will use the time ahead to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the report from the expert group and the input that has come from the hospitals.