Examines the intensive capacity under three governments – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
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– We goes quite far back. Questions about the intensive care capacity and bed capacity in the specialist health service have been on the agenda for a long time, says commission leader Egil Matsen to NRK.
The assessment confirms that the swine flu in 2009–2010 is a natural starting point when the commission is to look at how changing health ministers have to date handled issues of intensive capacity.
The commission has already conducted a large number of interviews, and will also interview Jonas Gahr Støre next week.
Already I a report about the swine flu in 2009, the Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning wrote that “The pandemic plan must be revised, and intensive care / intensive capacity should be given greater attention than in the current plan.”
Several other studies over the years have also warned of a high need for intensive care units in the event of a pandemic.
Nevertheless, the ordinary intensive care beds in Norway have only had a very modest growth in the last 10 years.
The issue of intensive capacity will be one of the main issues when the Commission presents its final report in April.
The head of the commission says they have not yet concluded whether they will recommend specific targets for the number of intensive care beds.
– But it is certainly possible for us to point out what the situation has been at the beginning of the pandemic and a direction for what it should be in the future, says Matsen.
The commission leader politicians are able to keep an eye on when the report comes, instead of blaming each other:
– Yes, it will not be to our advantage that it is used in a rented party political discussion in any case. Now the pandemic management is political in nature, but our ambition is that through our investigation we manage to look up so that we can look at the Norwegian system for crisis management, in a crisis that is as broad and as long-lasting as the pandemic has been.
Looking at Høie’s use of numbers
Throughout the pandemic, there have been a number of different figures on how many intensive care units hospitals can staff in a crisis.
On 10 March 2020, former Minister of Health Bent Høie in the Storting at the hospitals said they would manage 12–1400 concurrent intensive care patients, if all other treatment was downgraded.
Høie later admitted that the number was wrong, but would not apologize. He pointed out that the overview had been prepared by the Norwegian Directorate of Health.
Last autumn, the current Minister of Health Ingvild Kjerkol (Labor Party) pointed out that the Norwegian Directorate of Health now estimates that the hospitals can handle a maximum of 647 intensive care patients.
The use of numbers becomes a topic for the Korona Commission.
– We go through that type of number usage. Then we can have a role in pointing out that putting in an intensive care unit is not necessarily the same in normal times and as it will be in a crisis. It also has an impact on the way you count, says Matsen to NRK.
– I am pleased that the commission is going through all aspects of dealing with the pandemic. That is the way we can learn and be better improved next time, Bent Høie writes in a comment to NRK.
Vaccines and social differences
The Commission will also look at whether it was right for Norway to choose the “EU track” in the procurement of vaccines.
The question is inflamed, also among the governing parties.
Last year, the Center Party wanted the Storting to appoint a separate vaccine commission to clarify the issue.
– The Center Party believes that what happened when Norway entered into a vaccine agreement with the EU, is so important to get clarity that the Storting should start its own investigation, the party’s parliamentary leader Marit Arnstad told NRK in April last year.
In April this year, the Corona Commission’s assessment of the question will come.
The consulting company Helseøkonomisk analyze has, at the request of the commission, compared Norway’s vaccine purchases through the EU with the direct purchases of vaccines made by the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Israel and Canada.
The conclusions of the report are pending until the Commission presents its report.
– We will have relatively specific assessments of this when we submit our report in April. And the specific assessments will have to wait until that time, is all Matsen wants to say about the question.
– One question is also how Israel used health data as a bargaining chip against Pfizer. Are you considering whether Norway could have done something similar?
– Yes, we get into the issue. But exactly what we draw from it … we are in the phase where we have tried to do it.
The commission is also working on a chapter on how the pandemic has affected skewed, and how certain population groups have been affected by both infection control measures and actual disease.
– We see, for example, that there has been a difference in how the majority population and the immigrant population are affected by both the disease and the infection control measures.
– The question is whether the burden distribution is a good burden distribution, says Matsen.