Vestre takes over as Minister of Health – NRK Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has made changes in his government. On Friday, it became clear that Vestre is moving from his job as minister of industry to minister of health.

– It is the heavy political experience, the implementation power, I would say the personality and the value base, which were important to me when I asked Jan Christian to take on this important assignment, Støre said at a press conference on Friday afternoon.

Vestre takes over from Ingvild Kjerkol, who had to resign last week. Støre asked her to withdraw after her master’s thesis was rejected due to plagiarism.

The atmosphere was nevertheless good when Kjerkol welcomed Vestre at the office on Friday. During the presentation, Kjerkol said that the two have known each other since he was a leader in the Student Organization.

– The power and clarity that I encountered then, I have seen again many times since.

The new health minister also used the opportunity to thank Kjerkol for the work she has done.

– I think we have rarely had a more productive, energetic, creative and visionary health and care minister than you have been.

– I have been, and am a fan of yours.

Along with the key card, Vestre received flowers and a large pile of reading material. At the top was the investigation “Abortion in Norway”.

When asked how Kjerkol felt at the handover, she was clear:

– It feels very good, they are in the best hands. This is a clairvoyant man of great power, and the health field needs it.

Cecilie Myrseth (Ap) takes over as minister of industry, and Marianne Sivertsen Næss (Ap) enters the government as minister of fisheries.

Clear message from LO

Along with the keys come great expectations, also from the Labor Party’s own hinterland.

The trade union instructs Vestre to work to limit hiring in the health sector and fight privatization and bifurcation of the health care system.

The trade union is LO’s largest union with over 400,000 members, and union leader Mette Nord sits on APS’s powerful central board.

– The use of subletting in Helse-Norge is out of control. Today, municipalities and healthcare organizations spend around NOK 4 billion on temp workers who are only expensive intermediaries, says the Trade Union’s leader Mette Nord.

– We must fight the division of health services into two, have better control also of the private health service and provide more treatments in the public sector, says Nord.

Vestre must also ensure that the hospitals’ finances are strengthened, ensure that more health workers get full and permanent positions and distribute work tasks better, the union demands.

The new health minister tells Dagsrevyen that it is the public sector that has the main task of ensuring quality in the health service.

– We have also always had help from the private sector. It was the Labor Party that introduced the GP scheme in its time, the GP scheme in its time, which we are now strengthening. We will also need private people in the future, but it will be the community that sets the priorities.

– Pragmatic

Vestre has recently led the work on Ap’s new strategy. It was adopted by the national board a week and a half ago.

Vestre emphasized to NRK that Ap wants to have such good quality in the joint welfare offer that people do not need to buy private alternatives to get the best offer.

He rejected that Ap has plans for a right or left turn, but also said this:

– The voters are concerned that we solve the tasks in an efficient way. People are less ideological than before and want things to work, he said.

– We must find pragmatic solutions to people’s problems. We have probably been too eager to defend the systems instead of solving the challenges that people have in everyday life.

Cecilie Myrseth, who now succeeds Vestre as minister of industry, has distinguished herself as a sharp critic of private actors in the health and care sector.

LO’s first deputy chairman, Sissel M. Skoghaug, says she is confident that Vestre – if he gets the job – will follow up APS’s policy “to secure the community’s public health services”.

– It is absolutely necessary to reintroduce an approval scheme for private health actors, where the authorities can refuse establishment if it drains public health services for professionals. The government proposes to investigate this, and it is urgent, she says to NRK.

But Karita Bekkemellem, head of NHO Geneo, says there have been “tough political attacks” against her more than 2,000 member companies from the current government. She says the industry is experiencing a brutality where “private actors must be phased out of the Norwegian welfare mix model”.

– The ideological basis has changed, she says.

Bekkemellem asks Vestre to draw a line across the decommercialisation committee. Among other things, the committee looks at how commercial actors can be phased out of public welfare services.

– Vestre has been clear about talking up the job creators, private business and stopping capital flight out of Norway, she says.