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NOT SATISFIED: SV Leader Audun Lysbakken. Photo: Ola Vatn / VG
In recent years, FHI has had to cut its budgets. Various parties will provide support in the event of a crisis.
SV leader Audun Lysbakken believes that the government must now put more money on the table.
– We want money to be allocated that can increase the capacity associated with the fight against the pandemic. We are not going to propose a specific amount, because at the moment we do not know what FHI needs, Lysbakken tells VG and adds:
– What we want is to send a clear signal that resources are needed to compensate for the cuts that have been made in recent years.
In the period 2015 to 2019, the National Institute of Public Health cut 188 man-years, the 2019 FHI annual report shows. According to Conservative Party health policy spokesman Sveinung Stensland, the main reason FHI now He is less man-years than A few years ago, the forensic medicine department was transferred to the Oslo University Hospital (OUS).
– This is equivalent to more than two-thirds of the reduction in man-years, according to NTB.
The director of Public Health, Camilla Stoltenberg, denied this Monday in Dagsnytt 18 that the cuts had affected the ability to perform sample analysis.
– He hasn’t had anything to say lately, Stoltenberg said.
READY: Kjersti Toppe of the Center Party says the party is involved in providing crisis support to increase capacity at the National Institute of Public Health. Photo: Odin Jæger
– jumped on the chair
Prime Minister Erna Solberg told VG on Sunday that the cuts are not to blame for the slower tests in Norway than in Denmark.
Lysbakken responded to the interview with the Prime Minister.
– Cuts in FHI have been a topic for several years, and the consequences of them have been warned, says Lysbakken and continues:
– So I jumped into the chair when I read VG’s interview with Erna, where she flatly rejected what Stoltenberg said and stated that she has nothing to say about the current situation.
– Do you expect the government to put money on the table for FHI when new crisis packages are presented on Friday?
-Yes.
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– Declaration of bankruptcy
The SV leader is supported by Kjersti Toppe, SP health policy spokesperson.
– It is quite obvious that we will enter to provide crisis support to FHI. He shouldn’t be at the Downtown Party, he says.
– We are surprised that we are in a situation like this, where it seems that the lack of resources has affected the capacity for analysis, says Toppe.
She says Sp has been keenly aware that FHI has been subject to heavy budget cuts in recent years, including through debureaucratization and government efficiency reform, often called ABE reform.
– If the strict limits have caused the analytical capacity to now lag, the arrow points to the government, which has not done its job, he says.
– Having to give a crisis package to a public address or an agency that you have never heard of before, and it is really an absurd situation. The fact that it has become an issue is itself a bankruptcy filing.
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Labor opens the wallet if FHI wants
VG has asked the Progress Party and the Labor Party if they will support a proposal to support FHI in crisis. FRP declined to comment on the proposal, but APS health policy spokesperson Ingvild Kjerhol is willing to take a closer look at the proposal.
– If FHI needs more money, the Labor Party, of course, will open the wallet, write in an SMS to VG.
But now it is important that the analysis capacity available in universities and university hospitals should now be used to know if the mutant is loose in society, he continues.
