After Tromsø municipality (Tromsø kommune) has broken the law for years, the County Governor (Statsforvalteren) now demands that they bring home patients who end up lying in hospital for months waiting for municipal services.
At most this year there have been up to 60 discharge-ready patients (utskrivningsklare pasienter) at Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge (UNN) who are left lying and waiting. The majority belong to Tromsø municipality.
At the end of January there were 38 patients who should have received a municipal offer such as rehabilitation, according to a letter from the County Governor.
County Medical Officer (Fylkeslege) Anne Grethe Olsen informs the newspaper Nordlys that they recently became aware of a patient who had been lying at UNN since 9 November last year, awaiting a place in the municipality.
The County Governor now warns of sanctions against the municipality. It was already established in 2022 that the municipality had broken the law, and according to the letter the situation remains critical.
This is happening at the same time as UNN is running a deficit of several hundred million kroner and aims to cut 600 million kroner in order to reach a sustainable level. It is not going very well. Helse Nord is also experimenting with reorganisations and mergers of departments, which leads to understaffing and causes even more employees to resign. There are also long surgical waiting lists at UNN.
79-year-old Tore Håland has had to wait in hospital for two months after an operation, even though he is well enough to begin rehabilitation. Tromsø municipality does not have a place for him.
– It is a dreadful situation, says his wife, Hanne Håland, in a video report from Nordlys.
Costs tens of millions
Tromsø municipality blames strained finances, but at the same time pays several tens of millions of kroner annually to the university hospital for all the unnecessary bed-days.
In a letter dated 25 February this year, the County Medical Officer writes that the situation has led to “critically full wards, which results in the hospital’s emergency preparedness being weakened and creates challenges in ensuring that inpatients receive the necessary health care”.
In 2022, when the County Governor established that Tromsø municipality had broken the law by failing to ensure sound planning and dimensioning of services for discharge-ready patients, the County Medical Officer warned that the municipality’s practice not only affected the waiting patients, but also weakened UNN’s ability to treat the rest of the region’s population.
Requirements from the County Medical Officer
In the notice of order (varsel om pålegg), the County Medical Officer sets several concrete requirements for the municipality. Among other things, the municipality must report monthly statistics on discharge-ready patients.
In addition, the municipality is ordered to bring home the ten somatic patients who have waited the longest, within four weeks from when the order enters into force.
Tromsø municipality has a deadline until tomorrow, 16 March, to comment.