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“SYBOLIC GEST” – Hospital Director Tom Helge Rønning calls this gift to Telemark Hospital employees a symbolic gesture, and thinks it’s sad that someone took it badly. Photo: Private
What was intended to be a nice gesture from the boss has now started a broader debate about working conditions for nurses.
A man from Skien posted a photo on Facebook of the Christmas gift the Hospital nurse’s wife received in Telemark as a thank you for this year’s efforts.
It made a lot of people react.
After nearly a year in preparation for a pandemic, she, and all the other employees, received an umbrella.
“For almost a year, they have been exposing themselves to leading the way and caring for patients with and without Korona. As a thank you and Christmas gift, they receive an umbrella,” the man himself writes in the post.
In the comment section, he quickly began to boil with outbursts of anger at the hospital, and words like “embarrassed,” “tragic,” and “embarrassing” were commonplace. It was Telemarksavisa who wrote about the case for the first time.
However, the leader of the Norwegian Nurses Association, Lill Sverresdatter Larsen, has a different view of the matter.
– For everyone who works in other sectors, this may sound a bit strange. But it’s important for society to understand that nurses typically don’t get anything, not even a Christmas table. In recent years, we have been cut and we have less and less, Larsen tells VG.
She thinks it is boring that many are now pointing the finger at the hospital, and thinks that the finger should rather point to higher positions.
– The Christmas gift has a symbolic value, but more important than the salary that helps to retain vital skills, says Larsen and adds:
– I perceive it as a hospital that wants to give something extra. They have tried, even if it’s just an umbrella. Many nurses have to settle for a digital Christmas card.
The hospital: – It is not intended to be a recognition.
While Larsen thinks the Telemark Hospital gift is a nice gesture for employees, he understands that it may also seem insignificant to many.
– It is clear that when you have a huge responsibility, risk and stress every day you are at work, and then you put an umbrella on, she asks and continues:
– It will be a clear example of the situation in which we find ourselves.
The hospital director himself, Tom Helge Rønning, tells VG that he thinks it is sad that the hospital’s gesture has been received negatively.
– We normally serve a Christmas dinner for lunch in the dining room the day before Christmas, but we have not been able to do so this year. This is not intended to be an appreciation of everything one has gone through in the day. If someone thinks of it that way, I understand that they react, says Rønning.
I WANT TO THINK: Tom Helge Rønning would have preferred to have delivered a large bouquet of flowers to all his employees’ doorsteps, but he notes that he is managing a limited amount of tax money on behalf of the hospital. Photo: Telemark Hospital
Blame the economy
It also notes that the hospital has limited financial leeway.
– We manage the tax money and we must do it with caution. We don’t have the entire world economy, and this was primarily a symbolic gesture, says Rønning.
Lars Kittelsen, head of communications for Telemark hospital, confirms that the hospital has not had the opportunity to give Christmas gifts to its employees in recent years.
At the same time, the hospital director says that if the hospital had had a bigger wallet, it would have liked to pamper the employees this year.
– Then I bought some juicy gift cards that you could use in the local business community and big bouquets of flowers.
