Iceland review - 2016, Qupperneq 62

60 ICELAND REVIEW
HEALTH OF THE
NATION
Iceland’s healthcare service is in crisis.
It’s time to roll up our sleeves and start
building a new hospital, argues
Halldór Lárusson.
The Landspítali National
University Hospital is one of the
grandest buildings in Reykjavík.
It stands on the side of a hill and faces
you at a slant as you head into the center
of town. It was built in neo-classical style
in the late 1920s and showed the impor-
tance this yet-to-be-independent coun-
try placed on the health of its citizens.
The building has just been repainted in
gleaming white, giving it the appearance
of a first-class hospital.
BEHIND THE FAÇADE
Behind the immaculate façade, howev-
er, the hospital is crumbling. Doctors’
offices are housed in temporary contain-
ers, stacked three stories high, hidden
behind the main building. Corridors
are lined with trolleys piled with laun-
dry and empty cardboard boxes. The
roof leaks. Paint is peeling off. So far
this year, 23 out of 80 scheduled heart
surgeries have been postponed due
to lack of space in the intensive care
unit. One of those sent home in mid-
April without life-saving surgery was a
young former football player who had
been waiting for almost two and a half
years for his operation. The hospital
has managed to shorten waiting lists for
heart and coronary surgery, but those
for age-related procedures, including
hip and knee replacements, remain
much longer than the Directorate of
Health deems acceptable.
The main hospital building is now
over 80 years old and, in addition to
providing a visual focus for numerous
nondescript structures that form the
hospital campus, it also houses the
main surgery rooms. This is one indus-
try where being housed in a historic
building is not considered a selling point.
If you didn’t know you were in Iceland,
you might think this was a hospital in
a developing country. It is obvious that
this particular patient has never had
the radical surgery needed for survival;
instead it has been prescribed tiny doses
of medication just sufficient to sustain
signs of life. Microbiological research,
for example, is still housed in a one-story
building that was meant to be a tempo-
rary solution 40 years ago.
It is not just the buildings that need
investment. Last year saw long-running
strikes by doctors, and one by nurs-
ing staff, both professions having been
forced to work longer hours for less pay
than is acceptable. Iceland’s health ser-
vice, taken for granted by its citizens, is
under threat and numerous doctors and
nursing staff have emigrated to Norway
for better pay and conditions.
PHOTOS BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.