The Oslo City Council receives a blow for the management of the city’s health center.
City Council Leader Raymond Johansen said the stories from the Ullern Health Center shook him during a city council hearing in March. Now he is receiving criticism from a united opposition.
A majority of the city council believe that the city council has behaved improperly in handling matters relating to Oslo’s four health centres.
In the fall, several media outlets exposed objectionable conditions and gross neglect of care at the Ullern Health Center. During two City Council hearings this winter, powerful stories emerged from former patients and loved ones.
Today, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Red Party, the Progress Party, the People’s Party FNB, the Center Party and the KrF have banded together behind a so-called decision date against the city council, health and social care committee chairwoman Cecilie Lyngby of the People’s Party told Aftenposten.
This is the strongest form of criticism that a city council or the Storting can level at a city councilor or government minister without declaring distrust.
NRK mentioned the topic first.
– Crisis of confidence
The Conservative Party led the critical resolution, which was presented at a meeting of the Health and Social Care Committee on Thursday.
It is expected to be formally adopted at Wednesday’s city council meeting.
Hassan Navaz is health policy spokesperson for the Conservative Party in Oslo.
He says it is highly reprehensible that the city council did not take the danger signals seriously and intervened sooner. Since 2019, there have been numerous notifications from the Retirement Homes Agency, he points out.
– The care of the elderly in town is in crisis of confidence. Health centers had to provide solid and quality services to relatives and patients. It didn’t, says Nawaz.
Cecilie Lyngby (TV) is a group leader in the FNB People’s Party in Oslo. She wants the opposition to be even tougher on city council leader Raymond Johansen.
Distrust desired
Cecilie Lyngby wanted to table a motion of no confidence against the leader of the city council. She didn’t have the other parties with her.
– Raymond Johansen has been responsible for elderly care for eight years. If he hadn’t replaced health adviser Robert Steen midway through the process, we would have led the no confidence motion against Steen, Lyngby says. Steen was replaced by Marthe Scharning Lund in early February.
– I believe that the head of the city council did not prioritize municipal care for the elderly. He only understood after the press found out about the terms, Lyngby said.
Proposes major changes
– The city council has proposed strong measures for health centers. The people of Oslo need to be sure that they will receive good help when they come to our health centres. Councilman Raymond Johansen (Ap) writes as much in a text message comment.
He recalls that the city council presented a new strategy for health centers at the end of March. It will strengthen health centers by about 80 man-years and make health centers more robust, he writes.
– The care and education of our seniors is a top priority for this City Council, writes Johansen.
The new strategy will be discussed at the city council meeting next Wednesday.
– From the opposition, there will be heaps of amendments and additional proposals to the city council’s strategy, says Cecilie Lyngby.
