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On Christmas Day 2000, Lars Stenberg has a pain in his right arm. The airport bus driver position involves lifting a lot of luggage, in and out of the low storage space at the bottom of the bus, with the ticket bag on your shoulder. Despite the great pain, Stenberg continues to work as usual, but at night his arm hurts so badly that he goes to the traffic manager and shows an arm that has later turned purple and swollen. You are asked to go to the emergency room in Bærum.
They took a quick look at the arm and told me if this was not dangerous. So I went back to work the next day, says Stenberg.
On December 28 he still travels to the GP, because his arm is just as sore. Stenberg is sent directly to the emergency room, where he is diagnosed with a blood clot between his neck and right shoulder, and in his lungs.
It is difficult and difficult for her to survive, and she will remain in the hospital well into January.
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Occupational
The former bus driver meets Dagsavisen Fremtiden in a cafe in the center of Gulskogen.
She comes from Bærum, but moved to the Drammen area in 2011. She now rents a house in Gulskogen, together with her 13 and 14-year-old children.
He just wants a black coffee, seems restless and unsure of how to explain a long and complicated story.
Stenberg begins by counting when he got sick and that the specialist at the Bærum Hospital thrombosis clinic concluded that the blood clots had occupational causes. He couldn’t find any other explanation for the 23-year-old man being so seriously ill.
The blood clots likely damaged the lymph and nervous system, and since then Lars Stenberg has struggled with great pain, especially on the right side of his upper body. Serious neck injuries from previous years are also diagnosed later.
You have trouble using your arms, sitting, or staying still for long periods of time. Simple activities can cause pain for a long time afterward.
You have many headaches, concentration problems, balance and coordination disorders, decreased short-term memory, tinnitus, and have developed stress-induced psoriasis and Morton’s neuromas, a painful condition caused by enlarged nerve ganglia. from the feet.
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Qualified for disabled youth
After the hospital stay, Stenberg is on long-term sick leave, then switches to money for rehab and in 2007 is given a limited-time disability benefit. These benefits are known today as the Work Authorization Allowance (AAP).
In 2009, the decision will be extended for another three years. Then you will also be given a Youth Disability Supplement, which will guarantee people who get sick before they have earned an income base a higher minimum rate.
This benefit has never been temporary and there are very strict requirements for its grant. Among other things, the physician / specialist must document well that the patient became permanently and seriously ill before age 26, and that the ability to work is reduced by at least 50 percent.
But as of 2012, Stenberg was transferred to AAP, without saying a word. He experienced this as a step backward. Although she thought permanent disability benefits were the next step, Nav felt that it should be considered if it was relevant to return to work.
– By then he had already received a limited-time disability benefit for five years, the youth disability supplement for three years, and had been on 100 percent sick leave for 12 years, Stenberg emphasizes.
In 2001, his illness was reported to SAS and Nav as an occupational injury.
SAS accepts you as disabled, but since Nav would never accept this as an occupational injury or illness, he is logged with a permanent disability from “other illness” in their system. From the SAS insurance company, he thus receives a small sum each month.
Stenberg will receive work settlement money through 2017.
In February 2017, Nav Drammen believes that you should apply for a permanent disability pension. Based on statements from five physicians and specialists, including a psychologist and one of Nav’s chief consulting physicians, they have concluded that the ability to work is permanently impaired.
They conclude that neither medical treatment nor monitoring of Nav will be able to get him back to work.
– I was evaluated as disabled in 2007 and 2009, and I have not improved since then, on the contrary, says Lars Stenberg. Photo: Pernille Vestengen
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Unworthy situation
Prior to this, in May 2016, a joint meeting will be held at the Stenberg GP. Present are Nav’s chief consultant physician, Nav’s leader, neurologist and Stenberg himself.
– They concluded that there was no point in carrying out further tests. I also expressed myself that I had reached my limit, after 16 years of illness. The senior counselor was required to sign that they had finished settling against disability benefits. They just wanted an updated statement from the clinical psychologist, and they got it, says Stenberg.
The Fremtiden newspaper has had access to the statement of Stenberg’s GP, who confirms Stenberg’s version of the meeting:
“… where work-oriented testing was deemed no longer relevant for health reasons.”
In the psychologist’s statement, the blood clots are known as an occupational injury, and according to the case documents Dagsavisen Fremtiden has had access to, the psychologist writes that Stenberg’s situation is complicated because Nav exposes him to “a situation financially unworthy and mentally very stressful. “
“Based on the patient’s health, injuries, ailments and pain after a blood clot – the stress level (PTSD) – I think there can be no question that the patient should be entitled to permanent disability benefits 100 percent “, concludes the specialist.
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Something to live
Nav rejects the request in June 2017. They believe that Stenberg should have been examined by a specialist in Oslo.
– I couldn’t do more. What would you think of after a 45 minute consultation that none of the other doctors and specialists I have been meeting in 17 years? Nav wanted him to sign an activity plan, which was the same as signing that he agreed with the reasons for the refusal. I could not. Instead, I complained about the decision and thus was left with no income.
In 2017, a good older friend of Stenberg also dies, which he has dealt with lately before he died. Stenberg inherits his friend’s small apartment in Strømsø, and this means that he and his children have something to live on until the complaint is processed. In 2018, they will move with Stenberg’s brother and their three children to Gulskogen.
But you don’t have the health or energy to follow up on your own case. The rejection of the Social Security Court arrives in February 2019.
SAS’s insurance company stopped paying Stenberg in 2017, when it no longer received any benefits from Nav. This is the procedure.
In 2019, he still asks them to reconsider the case. Regardless of Nav, they choose to resume payments to Stenberg and refund what they should have had since 2017.
Also read: More people turn to social assistance after the hardening of the AAP
Not health for Nav
Today, Stenberg and her children live on this modest pension, contribution advance and child benefit, and for the past three months they have received rent, electricity and supplementary social benefits from the social services office.
All three have a total of 14,100 kronor a month to live on. Without a lasting benefit, Stenberg will never be able to get a loan to buy a home for himself and his children.
– I have two healthy children, of whom I am incredibly proud. Now those are the ones I prioritize. Unfortunately, I can’t just command the force to endure another round with Nav. I was considered disabled in 2007 and 2009, and I have not improved since then, on the contrary. As if I hadn’t gotten a job either, if I could have? Who wants to live like me?
Through the conversation in the cafe, he is right that he has had to stop. He asks what we were talking about and apologizes several times for the short-term memory failure.
– It will never be enough for Nav, says Lars Stenberg.
After 20 years of illness, he has given up the fight.
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Nav recommendation locally is not enough
The Fremtiden newspaper asked Nav why Stenberg did not receive permanent disability benefits, when Nav Drammen recommended that she apply for them, and she had previously received limited-time disability benefits for five years, without her health improving.
Here, Anne Speilberg, director of Nav Vest-Viken, responds that the requirements for limited-time disability benefits are more than just permanent disability benefits, and contends that Stenberg had not been thoroughly investigated.
It also emphasizes that the assessment of the work capacity of the local office in Drammen in 2017 is only one of several documents that form the basis for an application for disability benefits, but that it is not the office that assesses whether the conditions are met. .
He thinks he needed more research
She believes that Nav’s consulting physician during the joint meeting with Stenberg’s GP in 2016 concluded that Stenberg had not been fully examined and had to be evaluated by another specialist. As mentioned, you did not meet this specialist. This is in stark contrast to the version that Stenberg and the GP describe of what happened at the meeting.
They argue that the common conclusion of the meeting was that Stenberg did not need to be investigated further.
– The law is clear on the requirements that appropriate processing and work-oriented measures must be implemented, and we are obliged to follow these regulations when processing applications, Speilberg writes in an email to Dagsavisen Fremtiden.
Dagsavisen Fremtiden has asked Nav how Stenberg could not have been tried, when five doctors and specialists, including one of Nav’s chief medical consultants, have concluded that neither Nav’s medical treatment nor follow-up will be able to do so. . Back to work.
Nav does not respond to this.
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