Several municipalities introduced the illegal detention of visitors: – Misunderstanding – VG

– We see in hindsight that it is very regrettable that an initially vulnerable group is impeded in their social contact in their own home, writes section leader Heidi Engelund.

The municipality of Oslo confirms that 209 residents with developmental disabilities were introduced to a visitation interruption at their home this spring.

– For many, this was a very difficult time. We apologize to those who live in the homes and to their families, writes the section chief of health services, Kari E. Sletnes.

VG revealed on Sunday that 133 municipalities introduced a visitor strike for more than 2,400 people in housing and residence associations in March. The goal was to avoid corona infection.

– It’s too high a number. If we had understood how they could be misinterpreted, of course, we would have done things differently, says department director Helga Katharina Haug at the Norwegian Health Directorate.

The Norwegian Health Directorate believes that stopping visits justified in your letter is illegal.

– When did it go wrong: when were the guidelines written and communicated, or when municipalities and households had to interpret the standards at the local level?

– One does not exclude the other. The guidelines were not clear enough and municipalities did not read them well enough, Haug says.

Virusfrykten

The Norwegian Health Directorate notes that many were afraid, also in the municipalities.

On Thursday, March 12, the first covid-19 patient in Norway died. At the same time, the government introduced the strictest measures in peacetime. The fear was that the virus would spread uncontrollably among the elderly and vulnerable.

Two days later, all municipalities were ordered to close health institutions to visitors:

«To protect vulnerable patients and users from infection, it is now necessary to have access control and a general stoppage of visits in all public and private health and care institutions in the country, as well as in common areas of the residences, etc. Measures must include all visitors, including relatives of residents and patients … »

But the homes of the mentally disabled are not institutions.

Read also: Municipalities made only 27 coercive decisions

Although many housing and residential associations have employees on call 24 hours a day, residents live in private apartments that they own or rent. It is your home.

However, thousands lost the right to decide when and who could visit them.

Oslo: contributed to misunderstandings

VG has asked several municipalities why they introduced a visitor stop. Some write that a restraining order was imposed and necessary to protect residents from infection. Others acknowledge that they misunderstood the regulations and lifted the curfew as soon as they realized it was wrong.

The Municipality of Oslo refers to several words and expressions that caused the guidelines to be misinterpreted:

• Protect vulnerable patients and users
• Necessary with access control and general stoppage of visitors
• It should include all visitors, including residents’ relatives.

– The wording may have contributed to misunderstandings as some households / districts became more restrictive than was intended by the guidelines, writes Acting Section Chief Heidi Engelund in Oslo.

Norwegian Health Directorate: surprised

The municipality of Oslo confirms that 209 people were prevented from visiting his home. For some it lasted a few weeks, for others its suspension was not stopped until early May.

– Does the Norwegian Health Directorate understand how the municipality of Oslo could misinterpret the wording of what you wrote?

– Oslo is a large municipality, so it depends a bit on who has read and verified it, says lawyer and senior advisor Ann-Kristin Wassvik from the Norwegian Health Directorate.

– When a municipality is caught red-handed with illegal restrictions, they will not say they knew it. Then they will say that we have misunderstood this. And they certainly have, but many of these municipalities may, in hindsight, think that we now see that we should not misunderstand this, Wassvik says.

The city of Oslo has read the responses from the Norwegian Health Directorate. Section manager Kari E. Sletnes writes that employees had difficulty negotiating in a demanding situation.

– Oslo is a large municipality and the corona pandemic hit us hard and abruptly. We regret that the wording of the guide in some contexts is misinterpreted and has led to the guidelines being practiced more restrictively than was intended, he writes.

Sletnes emphasizes that infection control measures have been taken in the best sense. She apologizes to those affected:

– We will improve and learn from this, writes the section chief.

Trondheim: unclear

Trondheim Municipality also confirms that the guidelines were misinterpreted in ten households. The municipality claims this was revoked after two weeks:

– It has been reported that the first routines that came were not clear and did not give a clear distinction between the different types of housing. This led to misunderstandings, writes unit leader Tor Erling Evjen.

In the municipality of Sola, the municipal administrator writes that they introduced both a curfew and a curfew for a period: “Here we had pretty strict visiting rules for the first 14 days that we weren’t allowed to visit or residents could visit.”

– Do you think today that the practice during the first 14 days was legal?

– Basically, we do not have a legal authority that restricts visits to homes, and gradually we realized that these restrictions could not be maintained, responds municipal manager Oddny Hovtun Bjorland.

She writes that the Municipality of Sola spent the first two weeks getting an overview and training employees on infection control routines and making contingency plans. Only when she was in her place did the municipality make plans for visits, in collaboration with family members.

He became aware of the problem

The Norwegian Health Directorate confirms that its guidelines never gave authority to introduce a cessation of visits to private homes. They don’t have an overview of how often this has happened.

– We received comments that people with developmental disabilities living in nursing homes were not visited or abandoned. But we weren’t familiar with this scope VG mentions, says department director Helge Katharina Haug.

– When did the Norwegian Directorate of Health find out there was a problem?

– Three or four weeks after the introduction of the guidelines, we realized that this had a certain scope. That there were more than a few individual cases.

On April 20, Health Director Bjørn Guldvog stressed that there is no opportunity to introduce a cessation of home visitation for the mentally disabled.

– Who has primary responsibility for the fact that many people with developmental disabilities experienced an illegal visitor stop this spring?

– It is the municipalities that have the duty to ensure that the legislation is administered correctly. We have a responsibility to create good and understandable guidelines, but municipalities are responsible for ensuring that citizens’ rights are not violated.

– What will happen to the mentally disabled if we have a new big wave of infection?

– We hope that now everyone has learned that agreements must be made with the individual. I think then we will be able to be so clear on this that it will only be exceptionally misunderstood, says Wassvik.