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Yet another issue could create problems in the negotiations on the revised national budget. This time it is one of FRP’s biggest heart problems: the government-funded care of the elderly trial. The government has postponed an approved extension of the trial.
– We will give you a clear answer on what we mean, says Frp’s fiscal spokeswoman, Sylvi Listhaug.
From May to December of last year, Listhaug was Minister of Elders and Public Health in the Erna Solberg government.
- Also read: Frp has only been eager for an experiment that already costs NOK 640 million. Now it will expand.
Victory in government negotiations.
As the sole party to the Storting, Frp agrees to transfer funding for elder care from municipalities to the state. Therefore, it was a great victory to try when the party entered the government in 2013.
The trial, which started in 2016, should last until May of this year. But Frp, among other things, in the recent negotiations for a government platform, in Granavolden in 2019, made a breakthrough to “extend the test scheme with state funds for care services, both in time and in the number of municipalities “
It must be implemented from July 1 of this year.
In the state budget for this year, almost NOK 21 million was reserved to expand the experiment with six new municipalities as of July 1 of this year. But in the revised budget presented by the government on Tuesday, the first budget presented after Frp was out of government, the message was different.
“However, as a result of the coronavirus, planning capacity is limited in the municipalities and in the Health Department.”
On that basis, the trial and the grant proposal were postponed for six months.
Does not accept the justification
Frp will still have a hard time getting the money back in this year’s budget.
– Frp is going to pursue this case. Sylvi Listhaug says that the elderly and the elderly in the six municipalities that are finally selected deserve a quick start so that care services can be improved.
She believes that the provision of care in the six municipalities will be better when they participate in the trial.
– State-funded care means that it is not the municipality’s finances that determine what the user receives, but what needs they have. It has been a success in the municipalities where it has been tested.
– Frp is the only part that wants this attempt. Can you expect the government to give you priority when you, for example, engage with Ap and other opposition parties in both crisis measures and biotechnology?
– We are an independent opposition party that seeks the greatest impact. If the government needs our support to pass the Storting budget proposals, we hope it will follow up on our adopted problems, she says.
The initiative did not come from the municipalities.
When the municipality of Våler in Viken, Froland, Lyngdal, Austevoll, Osterøy and Fauske were informed that they had been selected to participate, on March 20, they were informed of the postponement. This is clearly stated in a letter from the Health Directorate, which was sent to the municipality of Froland, to which Aftenposten had access.
Mayor Ove Gundersen did not oppose the postponement, but stated that the proposed postponement did not come from them. Lyngdal has also not proposed any postponement, reports the mayor, Jan Kristensen. The two municipalities together have six infected registered crowns and no deaths.
Address: our recommendation
When the Health Directorate was asked directly if it was the municipalities or the Directorate who proposed the postponement, the director of the Kirsten Petersen project of the Health Directorate replied that it was the Directorate who in mid-March recommended the Ministry of Health and Services of Attention that postponed the extension.
– The six municipalities that have now been offered participation were not involved at the time. In our experience, the new municipalities that will enter the experiment have a limited vision of the extensive work required before the new criteria and the financing model. Therefore, it would have been difficult for them to consider what is the best time to start, he writes.
Practical problems related to the crown.
She believes that several practical things have caused a delay when the Management recommended it.
– In relation to the start-up originally planned for July 1, 2020, comprehensive information and training measures should have been implemented, as well as a financial review, both during visits to municipalities and in joint meetings for managers and managers of relevant cases in the municipalities. Such a situation was in mid-March, it was considered very challenging for the municipality to establish a collaboration with the Health Directorate in such preparations, Petersen explains in an email.
