Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2015, Qupperneq 8

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Icelandic Tourist Board. OPEN 7-21
BREAKFAST,
LUNCH & DINNER
T EMPL AR A SUND 3 , 101 RE Y K JAV ÍK , T EL : 5711822, W W W.BERGSSON. IS
By Gabríel Benjamin
NEWS
IN
BRIEF
Continues Over...
Complaints about Iceland’s
tourism industry being poorly
organised are hardly new at this
point, but this July was par-
ticularly shitty. Some tourists at
Þingvellir couldn’t find any out-
door toilets, and resorted to poo-
ing close to the graves of famed
poets Einar Benediktsson and
Hallgrímur Pétursson. And
then another tourist attempted to
clean up after doing his business
outside, only to accidentally set
the surrounding moss on fire,
prompting the fire department
and police to intervene.
Unsurprisingly, the govern-
ment was quick to respond, with
the Minister of the Environment
lambasting the tourists, saying
that their actions stemmed from
“disrespect” towards Iceland
and its heritage, rather than a
dire lack of facilities and infra-
structure.
Another tourism-hungry
hotspot also made headlines, as a
spokesperson for the Blue Lagoon
said that the reported "prob-
lem" of people having sex in the
lagoon is vanishing. He insisted
that as far as he knew, it hadn’t
happened in years, and that the
staff are specifically on the look
out for lewd activities.
In recent years, a number of recur-ring news stories have appeared on the front pages of Icelandic newspapers, greeting the nation in the morning like a bag full of
poo on fire inside a box of corn flakes.
Perhaps the most depressing ones have
been about the poor state of the public
healthcare system.
Flaming turds in my cereal is
why I keep an extinguisher in my
kitchen.
The previous left-wing government's
plan to fix the healthcare system was to
build a new hospital. Right from the start
this idea was criticised by members of
the current right-wing government, who
were then in the opposition. They asked
rhetorically whether what the healthcare
system needed was more concrete.
Concrete will hold a broken leg
in place, but there are better
methods.
Once the current right-wing govern-
ment got into power, they put a halt to the
plans to build a new hospital. Their new
plan, it seems, was to do nothing and see
what happens. What they saw happen
was a series of strikes by various health-
care professions, demanding both higher
wages and better working conditions.
What, the satisfaction of saving
lives isn't payment enough?
The latest group of healthcare workers
to strike were nurses. They wanted a 25-
30% pay increase, which is comparable to
what doctors received at the beginning of
the year. The government felt the best it
could offer was a 20% pay increase. The
Icelandic Nurses' Association put that of-
fer up for a vote and its members rejected
it with nearly nine out of every ten votes.
The government then passed a law that
compelled nurses and the also-striking
Association of Academics to return to
work.
Well, if the government passed
a law, then everything must be
better now.
The flaming turd has set fire to the kitch-
en curtains. Nearly one out of five nurses
working for the National University Hos-
pital has sent a resignation letter, includ-
ing six out of ten emergency care nurses.
This hospital has two thirds of all hospi-
tal beds in Iceland. If that many nurses
quit, the hospital will not be able to func-
tion like it does today, and it will have to
close its emergency department.
I feel bad for the government like
I would for a man trying to throw
a flaming turd out a window and
missing.
The government knew about the flaming
turd years in advance. In 2009, Frosti Sig-
urjónsson, now a Member of Parliament
for the ruling Progressive Party, wrote an
article in which he predicted that people
who work in healthcare would take jobs
overseas unless salaries were increased.
His proposal was that the money not
spent on building a new hospital would
go to higher pay so that healthcare work-
ers would not leave the country.
With years to prepare, did the
government have any backup
plans for a flaming turd-started
kitchen fire?
Minister of Health Kristján Þór Júlíus-
son has reacted with the grace of a man
who has to deal with a bag full of poo on
fire before having his morning cup of cof-
fee. In an interview he blamed the media
for making Icelanders fearful of the state
of the healthcare system. He said he had
"had enough of this discussion" and was
"agitated" about it. Though he agreed
that if the emergency department closed,
society would break down.
Let's be calm, it's only the break-
down of society.
Some members of the Independence Par-
ty, the other ruling party, have proposed
that the solution is to allow privatization
in the healthcare system. Since privati-
zation is widely thought to have paved
the way for the financial collapse in
2008, this is not popular. However, some
nurses have stated that they are planning
to start a company that would contract
out nursing services to hospitals, getting
higher pay for their work.
No wonder the Minister of Health
is reacting like a man holding a
flaming bag of turds.
The Icelandic Nurses Association and
the Association of Academics have sued
the government to overturn the law that
ended their strikes. They lost in the lower
courts, but the case will go before the Ice-
landic Supreme Court this month. News
about the poor state of the healthcare
system will continue to appear, spoiling
many a breakfast.
Has there been any cheerful
news? I need something lighter
with my morning coffee.
The funniest news lately was a about the
bicyclist who disposed of his used toilet
paper by setting it on fire. The resulting
brushfire was extinguished by the local
fire department. A group of nearby tour-
ists thought that a volcano was erupting
and rushed to the scene, only to find a
bunch of flaming turds. Which, at the
very least, is an authentic Icelandic ex-
perience.
8 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 11 — 2015
So What's This Crumbling Healthcare
System I Keep Hearing About?
Words by Kári Tulinius @Kattullus
Photo provided by Landspítalinn
I C E L A N D 4 D U M M I E S
Iceland | Healthy?