The administration has received a lot of criticism for its decisions about the summer shutdown and relocation of heart surgery. Now employees are demanding managers to resign from their posts.
Thoracic surgery department staff get downget downStepdown is a subsection of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, which primarily accepts patients after surgery. At Oslo University Hospital (OUS), they have joined forces in a signature campaign.
There they ask clinic director Bjørn Bendz and department director Arnt Fiane to resign immediately.
Special Counsel Ivar Greiner at OUS says they do not want to comment on the case.
Specialty nurse Ingvill Eggen is working on stepping down, and she’s behind this signature campaign. The step-down division has 26 employees.
On Sunday afternoon, the campaign garnered more than 180 signatures.
– Confidence is no longer weak, and now it is already absent, says Eggen.
anxiety
Nurse Ingeville Eigen says she worries about the workload of those left on the ward, and fears it will affect patient safety.
– We don’t have intensive care training, but we are sent every day to help intensive care patients after surgery because they don’t have enough people there. I wish I never had to say this, says Eugene.
There has been a conflict in the thoracic surgery department since November. It started with management making a new rotation and the decision to close the Ullevål section for the summer.
– This primarily concerned the fact that management did not allow us to participate in decisions and we received little information, says Eggen about the background of the signing campaign.
This week it became known that management is canceling the original plan for a summer shutdown. Now all planned heart surgeries will be transferred from Ullevål to Rikshospitalet by June 1.
– I discovered this via a notice in Dagens Medisin, says Eggen.
Eggen says she and her colleagues don’t know where or how they will work as of May.
– The process as it was so far is not acceptable. Eugene says I’m worried about how this will be handled in the future.
It is not a matter of Ullevål’s closure, she points out, but of management’s approach.
The conflict has so far led to 16 thoracic surgery staff members resigning from their jobs in protest.
Do not like to discuss individuals
No store stewards or safety representatives participated in or reported on this signature drive.
Trade union representative Steen Neseth said she did not know about this until VG contacted her on Saturday afternoon.
However, it is important to us that all employees have freedom of expression and feel they are being treated with respect, says Neseth and adds:
– The Nurses Association does not want the discussion to focus on individuals, as we believe that OUS as an employer is responsible for patient safety and good operations.
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