Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.02.2016, Page 8

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 2 — 2016
Politics | Bright?Interview In w ich shots are fired
After weeks of treatment, targeted zap-
ping of cancerous cells, and immune
crushing medicine, you need verify the
status of your cancer. Has it shrunk?
Have the cells been eradicated—leaving
only scar tissue behind? Has the treat-
ment been effective or do you need to dis-
cuss another approach with your oncolo-
gist? Don’t worry. The answer is only a
short flight away to Copenhagen. There
are no PET scanners in Iceland. In the
near future, you will be able to get your
PET scan done here in Iceland. Kári Ste-
fánsson, Icelandic neurologist and CEO of
DeCode, raised the funds and donated one
to Landispitalin, the national hospital.
On January 22, 2016, Kári started
an online petition to make the govern-
ment agree to allocate 11% of the GDP
for healthcare. According to the OECD,
in 2013, the total amount allocated for
healthcare was about 8.7% of the GDP—
putting Iceland below average in com-
parison to the rest of the nordic coun-
tries (with Finland also falling below
average). Within five days, Kári’s peti-
tion had more than 50,000 signatures.
“Why did I personally have to raise
money to buy a PET Scanner for the na-
tional hospital?” says Kári sitting across
from me at his desk in deCODE. “This
is an instrument that has been in use in
hospitals all over the world for 20 years.
It’s simple: we haven’t been funding
healthcare and it is unacceptable, com-
pletely.
In my mind, if you ask ‘what are the
minimum requirements that you make
with a group of people with whom you
want to live together and call yourselves
a society?’, the least you can do is attend
to the sick and the wounded. That should
be an absolute priority. You shouldn’t be
spending money on drilling holes through
mountains before you make sure that you
have reasonable ways of attending to the
sick and the wounded”
It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot
of numbers in it.
In 2014, a doctors’ strike lead to an
agreement to raise the salaries of doc-
tors over three years. This was not only
about compensation, but also about
keeping doctors and specialists in Ice-
land. When interviewed that year, Dr.
Íris Ösp Vésteinsdóttir, then head of the
Icelandic Association of Junior Doctors,
worried about attracting young special-
ists to Iceland, with the prospect of 35%
of Iceland’s specialists slated to retire in
the next decade.
“My view on this is simple: before
you begin to divvy the budget up for
various projects, you should make sure
you have a healthcare system. Our
healthcare system is not on par with the
healthcare systems in the neighbouring
countries. There is no question about
that,” said Kári, straightening up in his
chair. “Unbeknown to me, I was copy-
ing the policy of the government from
2014. Why is the government opposing
this now? Well, it’s because they never
meant what they said. This is so com-
mon amongst politicians, to make prom-
ises they never intended to keep. That is
the reason direct democracy is neces-
sary. You can look at my petition as an
exercise in direct democracy: where you
go to the people and ask them to support
a cause.
“I started to lobby, forcefully, and I
got some allies amongst the members
of parliament. It was the view of those
who were running the national hospital
that it would need about an additional
2.5 billion ISK to be able to run the hos-
pital at the same level as 2015. That was
taken to the government and everyone
agreed to allocate this additional 2.5 bil-
lion ISK—except the minister of finance,
he cut it in half. The hospital got an ad-
ditional 1.25 billion ISK, which is not
sufficient to run the hospital at the same
level as the previous year. Then a few
days later he announced there would
be a 300 billion ISK surplus in the gov-
ernment budget next year. So despite a
300 billion ISK surplus, they could not
afford an additional 1.25 billion for the
national hospital.”
An honest politician stays bought
Kári’s petition has been met with criti-
cism from the government and a few
outside consultants. Recently, Pawel
Bartoszek debated Kári’s petition—con-
cluding that Kári’s 11% of the GDP was
unreasonable and that the 8.7% of the
GDP being reported by the OECD was
misleading. Kári was using the total
expenditure of the GDP on healthcare,
which includes public and private ex-
penses on healthcare. If you were to look
at only the public expenditure Iceland
uses about 7.1% of the GDP; whereas, Swe-
den, Kári’s go to example, used about 9.2%
of its GDP on public healthcare.
“I like Pawel, but he’s a numbers
guy,” Kári said with a smile. “He in-
sisted that I was basing my petition on
false numbers on false arguments. I was
trying to explain to him that the 11%
number was not an argument. The 11%
number is a goal. There is a difference
between your goal and your argument.
He’s written many interesting pieces
for the newspapers, but he is entirely in-
correct if he thinks we have been fund-
ing the National Hospital well. Walk
through the hospital and see the people
in the corridors. Go check out the wait-
ing lists for the various operations and
procedures. The waiting lists are long
and they are not becoming shorter.”
Kári has been known to make a
scene. Watching him on television, any-
one can see he doesn’t shy away from
conflict. When Pawel attempted to bring
up his concerns and criticisms,he didn’t
really have the same testicular fortitude
and showmanship as Kári, which could
be a reason for people being sceptical of
Kári’s motivations.
“On this issue, I don’t think my pub-
lic persona has much impact,” said Karí.
“The healthcare system is a concern for
the majority of people in this country. I
don’t think it would have mattered who
initiated this. This isn’t a controversial
issue. Who is against better healthcare?
How large is the group of people here
in Iceland who would not put health-
care at the top of the government’s pri-
orities? This is so uncontroversial that
I doubt my person has much impact on
it. I think the only people really opposed
to this are blind loyalists to the govern-
ment parties and I don’t think they are a
very large number of people. I think it’s
a small group of people. If you were in a
position to get everyone in this country’s
opinion, the people
opposed would
be less than 5% of
country.”
Heavy lies the
crown
On January 1, Óla-
fur Ragnar Gríms-
son, President
of Iceland, an-
nounced he would
not be running for
another term in
office. Kári’s peti-
tion coincides with
this new available
seat of power being
available and the
use of populism and
direct democracy is in tune with other
politicians and parties—most notably,
The Pirate Party of Iceland.
“This is one way the Prime Minister
[Sigmundur Davið] tried discredit my
petition by suggesting I was doing this
because I was planning to run for of-
fice. That is absolutely untrue,” said Kári
without pausing. “We are doing fascinat-
ing work here at deCODE. It’s a scientist’s
dream to be in the position I’m in.
““I have no interest in running for
political office. I’m a nearly 67-year-old
geneticist. I love to do human genetics.
I run the best human genetics opera-
tion in the world. Why should I want to
become a president. I don’t understand
how anyone could think it would be
more suitable for me. I’m a somewhat
uninhibited, forceful, opinionated ass-
hole. Why would I become a president?”
Davið and Goliath
The Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davið,
wrote a response to Kári’s lobbying for
more healthcare funding titled Toppari
Íslands, which basically translates to
“Topping Iceland.” In his response, Sig-
mundur Davið compares Kári to those
people in coversations who always have
to one-up the last speaker—everything
they do is better, more exciting, more in-
telligent. The fact that a Prime Minister
is responding directly to Kári, and hurl-
ing insults, has created what appears to
be a rivalry between the two.
“I have no rivalry with the prime
minister,” said Kári before breaking into
a smirk “Why should I have a rivalry
with this obese two-year-old little boy?
He’s just answered my criticism with ju-
venile insults. There is no rivalry there.
It looks like he’s surrounded himself
with really bad advisors. It isn’t to the
interest of a Prime Minister to write
pieces like he has done in this debate.
“I can write whatever I want. I’m
a private citizen, but we have a Prime
Minister who basically every time I
say something he begins to throw shit.
I’m used to shit like that—actually, I’ve
taken the majority of my calories in the
form of shit like that—but for a Prime
Minister to be doing it, it doesn’t make
much sense. He just seems very inse-
cure. He becomes defensive almost in-
stantaneously.
“My petition for the improvement
of the healthcare system he [Sigmun-
dur Davið] looks at as a criticism of his
government. I went out of my way to
say that I did not think this was a criti-
cism of his government. I thought this
was a criticism of a succession of gov-
ernments, a string of governments and,
therefore, it was the responsibility of the
people of this country, the voters who
have voted these governments into of-
fice. But He took this as a criticism of
his government, and by doing this he is
claims possession of the mess. He makes
the mess his, which is politically and
rhetorically stupid. It’s unbelievably stu-
pid for a Prime Minister to pull himself
into something like that.”
Keep The Ball Rolling
“There is absolutely no way we can take
these politicians seriously,” Kári leans
back in his chair and raises his hands
over his head. “They
simply don’t mean
what they are saying.
Therefore, I believe,
because this has been
the experience for
the last 20 years or so,
that we have to, we the
people of this country,
seize control of this is-
sue and demand that a
specific percentage of
the GDP should be al-
located for healthcare.”
Kári continues
to lobby and plead in
newspapers and online
for more support from
the people of Iceland.
If the rate at which the
signatures keep coming in continues, it
appears to be working. Meanwhile, of-
ficials haven’t decided where to build a
facility to store, let alone run, the PET
Scan Kári donated.
“We are up to 55 thousand signa-
tures. This has been a one month effort.
I am probably going to recruit some
people to help me with this. See whether
we can keep revitalizing this initiative.
We will make it there. I think an over-
whelming majority of the people in this
country are in support of this.
“This is a very interesting experi-
ment in direct democracy. In addition
to being useful because it improves
healthcare, and timely because of how
bad of shape the healthcare system is
in, it’s also interesting to find out if we,
the people of this country, can use this
method to influence the decision mak-
ing by the politicians. If not, we are in
deep shit.”
If you are interested in reading or signing
the petition, check it out online at www.
endurreisn.is.
Can A Geneticist
Save Iceland’s
Health Care?
A few thoughts on 2015
and general discontent
Kári Stefánsson in Interview by YORK UNDERWOOD
Image by MAGNÚS ANDERSEN
“This is
one way
the Prime
Minister
[Sigmundur
Davið] tried
discredit my
petition...”