The management is dropping plans for the summer closure of the Ullevål department, and is instead moving all planned heart surgery to Rikshospitalet. Trade union representative Stine Nesseth says even more people are now considering quitting.
On Friday, the management at the Heart, Lung and Vascular Clinic (HLK) at Oslo University Hospital invited a meeting.
There, the management said that they are scrapping the original plan for the thoracic surgery department at Ullevål. All planned heart surgery will now be moved to Rikshospitalet by 1 June 2023.
In future, Ullevål will perform lung surgery, and they must be prepared for heart surgery in emergency cases.
The original plan was to close the department at Ullevål for the summer.
Kristoffer Solvang is the main shop steward for the Norwegian Nurses’ Association (NSF) at HLK. He was at the meeting and confirms the new plans for VG.
– We have not received more concrete information about how this will be carried out in practice. NSF has emphasized that this process must take place with strong participation from all involved and a good flow of information. Until now, we believe that there has been insufficient information and involvement in the process, says Solvang.
Solvang describes the situation as challenging, and says that a staff has been appointed which acts as a kind of crisis management.
With fewer staff and a smaller department doing planned heart surgery, waiting times can increase:
– That in the long term there is a risk that this will affect waiting lists and that operations may be postponed because of this is likely. We expect the employer to safeguard patient safety in the change work that is currently underway, says Solvang.
Today’s Medicine first wrote about the new plans.
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– Extraordinary situation
Clinic manager Bjørn Bendz tells VG that employees at Ullevål and Rikshospitalet must work together to ensure the best possible patient care.
– A decrease in open heart surgery and increased complexity has created a need to gather professionals and expertise in one place. This is the background for the process we are now in the middle of. We have to go through it for the sake of the quality of patient care, says clinic manager Bjørn Bendz.
– Due to the staffing situation at Ullevål, the reorganization is being accelerated, he says.
Bendz believes they have been open with a broadly composed and contributing working group that has looked at various solutions.
– Now, however, we have an extraordinary situation with a personnel shortage. We solve this by collecting all planned cardiac surgery at Rikshospitalet. We will ensure broad participation in how this is to be done, he says.
When it comes to waiting lists for operations, Bendz says that this is something they do not take lightly. He is confident that they will be able to control this.
– Challenges patient safety
The management scraps the original plans because they no longer have enough employees. Several people were enraged when the management presented the plans for summer closure.
It ended with 16 out of 24 employees resigning their positions. These have no plans to return, according to union representative Stine Nesseth.
– No employees have expressed that they are going to withdraw their resignations, quite the opposite. I have received information that several people are now looking elsewhere because they do not want to work under this management.
Nesseth says the whole situation now bears the hallmarks of poor planning and management.
– I think this further challenges patient safety, says Nesseth.
Bjørn Bendz replies that the measures they are now introducing are for the sake of patient treatment:
– The reorganization was actually supposed to be carried out in 2025. Now the process is being accelerated due to the personnel shortage at Ullevål to ensure patient treatment, says Bendz.
Conflict with management
In the thoracic surgery department, operations are performed on the heart, lungs and central blood vessels.
The employees have tried to reach an agreement with the management, and came up with a proposal for a solution that could lead to some withdrawing their resignations.
But during a meeting in February, this proposal was rejected by management. As a result, no one withdrew their resignations.
Several are also very critical of the new rotation with more frequent weekend shifts. From before, there is also a lot of dissatisfaction about the entire Ullevål hospital being closed down.
