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The deadline for Ragnhild Holm Olsen from Molde is approaching. She has been through this before and has a young child at home. In February, he will be big brother. But this time, the 32-year-old is feeling more insecure about the birth. The news that Helse Møre og Romsdal hospitals are bringing red earth substitutes without quarantining them worries her and other pregnant women.
– It is an additional stressor and is not good considering what is happening. The safe environment is important when you give birth. And the ones you trust are gynecologists and midwives, he says.
These are the testing procedures at Helse Møre og Romsdal:
Fear of infection
Earlier this week, NRK wrote that the lack of midwives and gynecologists means that the maternity ward in Kristiansund must use surrogates from Sweden and Denmark, without them being quarantined.
Ragnhild Holm Olsen reacts to the fact that the mothers were not informed about the situation in the maternity wards.
Photo: Hans-Olav Landsverk / NRK
These are tested before leaving their home country and before they start working, but they are exempt from quarantine. Personnel in critical social functions can be exempted from quarantine where necessary to avoid danger to life and health.
This still makes the 32-year-old fearful of corona infection in the maternity ward.
– It is not certain that they are carriers of the infection, but there is some danger that it occurs when they are not in quarantine.
She responds that the mothers have not been informed of the situation.
– I think it is very inferior that they have not told us anything. I also react to the fact that people from the red lands can enter a hospital where there are vulnerable people, especially considering all the infection control rules that exist today, says Olsen.
– You already have an insecurity related to whether you are going to give birth in Molde or Kristiansund and then this comes in addition.
Great shortage of professionals
Too great a shortage of professionals has led to the maternity wards in Molde and Kristiansund now open for two weeks at a time. However, Øyvind Bakke, director of the Helse Møre og Romsdal hospital, has been forced to accept surrogates from Sweden and Denmark and grant exemptions from the quarantine rule in order to operate the wards.
Møre og Romsdal Health Director Øyvind Bakke says they have been forced to accept substitutes for the red earth.
Photo: Helse Møre og Romsdal
According to the Ministry of Health and Care Services, it is the health trusts themselves that decide whether to accept substitutes from red countries and grant this exception. Bakke has previously stated that it is only within the maternity wards that they have done so.
– The reason why we have not informed mothers is that we have taken many compensatory measures and therefore we consider that the risk of contagion is low, he says.
Bakke emphasizes that the most important thing to them is being able to offer a safe food supply, and that substitutes that are granted exceptions are often tested and must follow strict infection control rules.
But the situation in Møre og Romsdal may become more challenging in the coming weeks. The health trust will have to bring in even more foreign surrogates at the four county hospitals.
Going forward, there are 11 requests for exemptions from the quarantine rules in Kristiansund, two in Molde, two in Ålesund and one in Volda, Bakke says.
Strict evaluations to grant exceptions
Health Minister Bent Høie emphasizes that the main rule is that workers from the red countries must be quarantined for ten days and that the quarantine exemption should only be used in those situations where it can go beyond the life and health.
Health Minister Bent Høie emphasizes that there must be good evaluations behind if an exception is made to the quarantine rules.
Photo: Caroline Bækkelund Hauge / NRK
– If one is forced to close an entire pavilion because it does not seize people, then the negative consequences will be greater and therefore there is this exception.
Høie further says that it would have been better if the health trusts could plan in such a way that surrogates had time to quarantine themselves first, but that one could use the quarantine exception when this was not possible.
– The Nordic region is normally the most open region in Europe and many of the health services work and live beyond national borders. It would have been extremely demanding on our health services not to be able to take advantage of these substitutes. But there must be strict evaluations behind to grant the quarantine exemption, Høie says.
