(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Number crushers are working to find out what values the county hospitals and other specialist health services in the counties are worth.
A number of county mayors have rejected Health Minister Tore Tønne's proposal as to what the counties will be left with after the state plans to take over specialist health services on January 1, 2002.
The Minister of Health has made it clear that when the state is to take over the operation of the specialist health service from the county municipality, it must also take over the means of production to fulfill this operational responsibility. In practice, that is, all real capital associated with the business.
Tore Tønne has also said that the state will take over in the same vein other types of businesses that provide the relevant specialist health services.
This means that the state also intends to operate laboratories, hospitals, x-ray institutes, publicly owned pharmacies, kitchens, laundry etc.
Tore Tønne's goal is for the state to take over publicly owned production funds in county municipal or municipal ownership.
With this starting point, it is not only about taking over twenty-one hospitals, but rather several hundred institutions.
Pending claims
Several county mayors, including everyone to the Center Party, have turned their thumb on the proposal for Tore Tønne. But everyone still feels that they have hardly any choice, and must enter into negotiations on how all the services and properties should be transferred to the state.
The government has made it clear that they do not want to buy the hospitals, but rather that they talk about taking over the operations with the expenses and revenues that lie in the county municipal health sector.
The counties want them to get as much as possible out of this acquisition. Among other things, the City of Oslo has discussed whether, for example, Ullevål hospital should be left to the state without delay. The municipality wants what they have spent on hospital resources. Market price has been mentioned as an opportunity. But the government says no. And that's understandable. But the market price alone for the Ullevål Hospital had to pay upwards of NOK 10 billion.
But such prices will only take the regional hospitals a real boost of oil wealth. In addition, all the other properties come.
The county authorities have chosen to be in dialogue with the government. While they want to be properly paid for what the state will take over, they must at the same time think about securing other parts of the county municipal tasks, such as the high schools.
KS takes on the task
The county authorities have commissioned the Local Authorities Association (KS) to negotiate a good agreement with the state. KS has its own project group working on these issues.
In their draft negotiations, some questions are raised about the financial settlement.
Counsel for KS, Børre Stolt, says that they have not set any krone figures on these units that the state will take over. One of the reasons for this is that it is very difficult to say how much is invested in a hospital, how large a loan is linked to the investments and so on.
The reason for these uncertainties about, among other things, the debt in hospitals is that the counties mainly take out loans to the county municipality, which they then distribute again in the different areas that need money.
KS assumes that the framework conditions for the county municipalities for 2002 and onwards must be in accordance with the real expenses the counties have to carry out their assigned tasks.
Therefore, the county mayors have demanded that the financial settlement must be "clean and tidy".
Several counties point out that the deficit in the hospital sector has led to the county municipal economy being in imbalance with sustained operating deficits and great pressure on other county municipal sectors.
preemptive
The county government also requires that they be granted a right of repurchase in cases where the state chooses to close down hospitals or remove buildings from hospital operations. The same should apply if the state wants to sell out parts of the properties.
The county authorities point out that they experience it as unfair if the state takes over the hospitals today, and maybe if a few years they choose to sell out parts at market price, and put the money in the treasury. Here the county municipalities will secure themselves through a repurchase clause in the agreement with the state.
Health Minister Tore Tønne will present the proposal to the Storting in 14 days on how they intend to resolve discussions about ownership and the values in the hospital sector at county level. When that proposal comes, we will have a petition about the future agreement. The signals from the government have not gone in favor of the wishes of the counties so far.
