Danish nurses with drastic measures:
Norwegian nurses cry at work, and for several hours after work, experience palpitations and have stress symptoms.
The Norwegian Nurses’ Association has said that every single day they receive messages from nurses who are either considering or have decided to quit.
In recent days, TV 2 has focused on several things that are focused on the enormous load that is known.
– Desperate attempt
But Norwegian nurses are not alone. Dissatisfaction is also great in Norway’s neighboring countries.
In Denmark, a group of nurses has set up the action group #collective termination.
The group’s purpose is to gather so many of the country’s nurses for a collective dismissal on 30 November.
– The dismissal should not be seen as an opposition to the profession or the patients, but precisely as a desperate attempt to get the government and employers talking, they write on Facebook.
– Will collapse soon
Nurse Luca Jonathan Saverio Pristed is one of those behind it.
He set up the group in sheer powerlessness over the fact that the Danish government passed a bill that the nurses had voted no to times, after a strike this summer.
– Since the politicians have ignored our call for help, I therefore set up, together with other nurses from all over the country, this working group and the Facebook group, to get the politicians to deal with. Because the Danish health service will soon collapse, and they must take responsibility for this, says Saverio Pristed to TV 2.
The action group expects that around 1,000 Danish nurses will resign their jobs next week.
– Tells something about the mind
The Danish nurse says, like her Norwegian colleagues, that working conditions have been very demanding for a long time.
– We’re understaffed. After the strike this summer, we chose to say no to more work and extra shifts, to show that the Danish health service only works because nurses work well over the hours we are employed, says Saverio Pristed.
Lill Sverresdatter Larsen, leader of the Norwegian Nurses’ Association, says the action in Denmark, tells something about the frustration and her nurses know about.
– The same murmurs in Norway as well. As an organization, we get questions about why we do not organize something similar. We comply with laws and regulations, and can therefore not recommend illegal or illegal actions, she says.
Critical
Minister of Health and Care Services Ingvild Kjerkol (Labor Party) says that there are serious signals coming from the nurses.
She is aware that it would have been critical if we had come there in Norway, that nurses had threatened with mass redundancies.
– It’s not something we want. But I think we have a better tradition of talking together and maybe have in Denmark. In Norway, we have authorities that listen to both the employee and employer side, and who seek to solve the challenges in favor of a strong public health service, says Kjerkol to TV 2.
Precisely for this reason, she wants Norway to avoid ending up in a similar situation as Denmark. However, Kjerkol emphasizes that it is worrying that so many choose to leave the nursing profession.
– We need them in the health service, and therefore it is urgent to provide the nurses with working conditions and conditions that make them stay.
– Do you believe that you will be able to keep Norwegian nurses in the job?
– I have faith. If not, I must have found something else to do, says Kjerkol.
Resigns
Luca Saverio Pristed says that the goal of the mass dismissal is that the politicians initially pay the nurses 5,000 kroner a month.
– But there must also be a solution on the table that can improve the working environment in the long run, he says.
Saverio Pristed works as a nurse at the emergency room at Bispebjerg hospital in Copenhagen. But on November 30, he quits his job.
– I resign along with many other nurses, and will only return if conditions improve, he says to TV 2.