Expensive for municipial authorities in Oslo to take over nursing homes

Expensive for Oslo to operate nursing homes themselvesOslo.Marte Thorkildsen (The Socialist Left Party) Photo: Vidar Ruud / NTB scanpix

The municipality has to spend nearly 50 million more on care if they are to take over the running of the commercially-run nursing homes. It is worth the price,  councilor Inga Marte Thorkildsen (The Socialist Left Party) says.
Commercial companies currently operates around a third of the city’s nursing homes, which cost the municipality more than 1 billion a year. An estimate of the Nursing Administration shows that it will cost an additional 49.5 million if the municipality itself will be responsible for running those nursing homes,  Aftenposten writes.
The increased cost is partly because the municipality has got a better pension plan, a note from the agency says. Commissioner for the Elderly Thorkildsen  will gladly foot the extra bill for sending the commercial players on the door.
– It’s a well known fact that women in the health care professions often are not paid well. Many are doing work that is so taxing that they have to retire earlier from their professions than most other people. That’s why this is important. We want to contribute to gender equality, and we do not want large income disparities within the same industry, depending on whether it is run by public or private actors,  Thorkildsen says.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today