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Icelandic Healthcare System Is In A State Of Near Emergency
The chairperson of the Icelandic Medical Association says she expects an emergency in the healthcare system, Vísir reports. She says the pressure on healthcare workers has become a dangerous vicious circle. The workload constantly increases, but the number of medical personnel does…
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Last Words: Where Has Our Healthcare Gone?
Say you live in Iceland and you’re on minimum wage. More than half of your wage goes into your rent every month. One day you wake up and you’re covered in painful red cysts. Crying, you try to make an appointment; it’s…
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Iceland Violates Human Rights By Performing Surgery On Intersex Children
According to Piet de Bruyn, General Rapporteur on the rights of LGBT people appointed by the Council of Europe, Iceland has been violating the human rights of countless individuals for decades by performing irreversible surgery on intersex children, RÚV reports. A problem…
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Private Healthcare Provider Employee Under Investigation In Death Of 8 Year Old
A nurse working for the private homecare company Sinnum is under investigation in the 2014 death of 8 year old Ella Dís Laurens, reports RÚV. The girl suffered from an incurable nerve disease and depended on a medical ventilator for breathing, which…
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VIDEO: Woman Calls Out Government For Healthcare Failure
A video of a woman calling out the government for healthcare failures has gone viral on Facebook, with over 180,000 views. Ástrós Rut Sigurðardóttir and her family are struggling to manage financially as they drown under her husband Bjarki’s medical bills which…
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Can A Geneticist Save Iceland’s Healthcare?
After weeks of treatment, targeted zapping 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 treatment been effective or do you need…
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Healthcare In Iceland Vs. The US: We’ve Got It So Good
Waiting to board the plane that would move me to Iceland several years ago, I had plenty of second thoughts. Hesitations. Reservations. It will be cold and windy, I thought. And dark. I am close with my family; the notion of leaving…
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Hospital Director: Healthcare Should Create Value, Not Profit
Following a year of trouble, marked by extended strike actions, recent reports from Landspítalinn Háskólasjúkrahús (the National University Hospital) are anything but reassuring. After the January resolution of Iceland’s first ever doctor strike, delayed operations were further postponed as nurses along with…
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News In Brief: End of July 2015
Complaints about Iceland’s tourism industry being poorly organised are hardly new at this point, but this July was particularly shitty. Some tourists at Þingvellir couldn’t find any outdoor toilets, and resorted to pooing close to the graves of famed poets Einar Benediktsson…
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So What’s This Crumbling Healthcare System I Keep Hearing About?
In recent years, a number of recurring 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…
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Labour Legislation And Mass Resignation Of Icelandic Nurses
Residents of this country, as well as visitors to it, followed the news closely throughout May and into the early days of June, as talks of rolling work stoppages and an indefinite general strike loomed. With a possible strike of many of…
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No Authority
Unfortunately, I fear that 2014 will be remembered as the year when Iceland took a turn from being a Nordic welfare state, towards becoming a society marked by neoliberalism and harsh individualism. Iceland’s right-wing government is currently engaging in a full-scale attack…
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The Cost of Cancer
In the wake of the holidays one year ago, after far too many baked good, chocolates, wine, assorted festive meats and accompanying sauces, and just about everything else one might binge on during the merriest of seasons, my husband and I had…
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National University Hospital Dealing With Leaky Roof
The Reykjavík Fire Department were called to Landspítalinn (the National University Hospital of Iceland) yesterday to deal with several roof leaks, reports RÚV. As the temperature rose and the ice on the roof began to melt, water started to pour through holes in…
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Two Minutes Of Silence To Commemorate First Rate Health Care
For two minutes on Tuesday, Jón Þór Ólafsson, member of Alþingi on behalf of the Pirate Party, stood silent by Alþingi’s podium, to commemorate first rate healthcare in Iceland. This was during a session about next year’s State Treasury budget. Two minutes…
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Squeezing Blood From A Turnip: Iceland’s Universal Healthcare At Risk
In a small and private ceremony in a chapel in Fossvogur, around 30 friends and family members are present to pay their respects to 50-year-old Rósa Mikaelsdóttir, a single mother of three who passed away on November 17. Rósa had struggled with…
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May Day Mayday: Iceland’s Ongoing Doctor Strike
Following a round of unsuccessful negotiations, doctors in Iceland commenced their first ever strike in late October. In the wake of the banking crisis, so as to share the burden, doctors not only accepted a 5% wage cut, but also ceased seeking…
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Iceland’s University Hospital: The Director Speaks
Throughout the whole healthcare debacle, one man has consistently remained focused on the big picture: the National University Hospital of Iceland (LSH) director Dr. Páll Matthíasson, PhD. Educated as a psychiatrist, Páll worked in London, England, from 1997-2007 before returning to Iceland,…
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Down To The Bone: The Healthcare System, Post-Austerity
Following the economic collapse of 2008, the Icelandic State’s debts skyrocketed, reaching 126% of the country’s GDP in 2011. At the same time, State revenue sources ground to a halt, and property devalued. The consumer price index shows price levels on consumer…
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Healing Hands
In the above photograph, I am accompanied by one of my favourite people in the world, Dr. Haukur S. Magnússon, my paternal grandfather and my namesake (I had to make sure not to get a doctorate degree, so folks would be able…
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Which Is Why We Talk About The Weather
Yet another Monday. Feel free to read the following at work. That goes for police staff as well. If you are self-employed, unemployed, a student, in hospital, an irregular migrant or currently on strike, I don’t have to tell you. Your teeth…
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Minister Proposes Privatization To Finance New Hospital
Healthcare Minister Kristján Þór Júlíusson has proposed that the State sell some assets to finance the construction of new hospital building. In a radio interview broadcast by RÚV Wednesday morning, he stated: “We should proceed by transferring assets that belong to Icelanders…
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Record Number of Vasectomies In Iceland
According to new data from the Directorate of Health more Icelandic men than ever before opted for a vasectomy last year. RÚV reports that 507 men were sterilised last year and by comparison 483 underwent a vasectomy the year before that. In…