“…We have to find a way to live with the virus…”
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Translation: Julie Summers
The Student Paper recently spoke with Svandís Svavarsdóttir about the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Her position as Minister of Health has likely never been as visible and important as it is now, nor had a greater effect on students’ daily lives.
Svandis has held ministerial positions before, having served as Minister for the Environment from 2009-2012 and Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources from 2012-2013. Before getting involved in politics, Svandís worked as an education manager in sign language studies and sign language interpreting at the University of Iceland. We asked her whether sign language should be a required subject in schools. “Yes – that would be a worthy goal. However, there’s a certain challenge involved in finding the number of teachers we would need to meet that goal. Ideally, teachers would be native sign language users, and that’s not a big group of people. We’d probably have to create a lot of online learning materials and also make sure it was as interactive as possible.”
One of Svandís’ assistants is a young woman in her twenties. We asked Svandís whether she thinks it’s important for young people to apply for jobs in the public sector. “Having all sorts of people doing all sorts of jobs is a great thing, and I think there are really a lot of young people in a variety of positions in the public sector, which is positive. It’s also important that people of all ages participate in politics. I have two assistants, and the age difference between them is 41 years. I think it’s great that one of them is a young woman with a legal education and the other is an older man with extensive experience and knowledge of the health care field. It’s a good combination,” says Svandís.
Important to secure equal access to health care
Among other issues, Svandís has focused on improving mental health services and finding ways to improve public health. This spring, Parliament passed a bill to require that psychological services be covered by health insurance and become part of the public insurance system. It is slated to take effect at the start of next year.
“I’ve put a lot of emphasis on strengthening mental health services around the country; during my time as Minister of Health, we’ve fully staffed mental health teams around the country, increased the number of psychologists working in local clinics, and focused on prevention and public health. Recently, I allocated money to the Pieta organization to support their efforts to prevent suicide and self-harm, and I decided to finance a position for a suicide prevention project manager at the Directorate of Health through the end of next year. So there’s been a lot of progress in this arena, but the era of COVID-19 poses a lot of difficult challenges,” answers Svandís. She says the government has been aware of this since the beginning of the pandemic and that an effort was introduced in April to channel 540 million krónur to supporting mental health and improving Icelanders’ emotional health. The budget proposal calls for the same amount to be allocated in 2021.
“The discourse around mental health and emotional well-being is also much more prevalent and more open than it was a few years ago, which is good,” says Svandís, adding, “Actually talking to users of the mental health care system and people who have experience of mental health disorders has also become the norm, and it’s about time. The importance of early intervention has never been more widely discussed, both in the professional discourse and the public discourse, as well as the importance of improving local services, like we’ve been doing by strengthening local clinics.”
In a 2019 interview, Svandís commented that it’s sometimes said that the thing that tells you the most about a society is how they treat their most vulnerable populations. Asked what that statement says about how we, as a society, treat the homeless and people with addiction problems, she answers that it matters greatly. “One of my main goals as Minister of Health is to secure equal access to health care, regardless of external circumstances like financial status, residence, gender, and social status. We’ve already significantly reduced patients’ financial responsibility since the start of our term and, for instance, eliminated the appointment fee for pensioners and people on disability. When it comes to these populations, it’s incredibly important to eliminate barriers to services, like fees, because money is a large barrier for all too many people.”
We asked Svandís about the bill on supervised drug consumption facilities – what led to it, where things currently stand, and whether she thinks that any such facilities will open in the near future, in light of the fact that many people don’t want to see housing for the homeless in their neighborhoods, let alone facilities for drug users. “I have a lot of faith in the harm reduction approach when it comes to substance abuse, and I’m convinced that it is intended to improve quality of life for people with addiction problems. That’s why I was particularly proud when Parliament passed the bill on supervised drug consumption rooms this summer. By passing the bill, we’re showing respect for people who are in an incredibly difficult position, people who are marginalized by the rest of society. It’s extremely important that we meet people where they are, and I know the City of Reykjavík is very motivated to get started with this project, so hopefully it will happen as soon as possible.”
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Aware of an unknown enemy
We asked Svandís whether the third wave of the pandemic had caught her by surprise. “No, it really didn’t surprise me when the third wave began, because I was and am aware that we are dealing with a previously unknown enemy, and we don’t know how it will behave. We also know that as long as the virus is spreading around the globe, it will be something that our society and health care system have to deal with.” Asked whether it’s possible to predict an end to the pandemic and whether she has high hopes for a vaccine or thinks it’s best to limit the spread by taking preventative measures and adjusting our behavior, Svandís says it’s clear that we can’t predict how this will end, and we need to find a way to live with the virus long-term. “I know that’s not what people want to hear, but that’s why it’s important to have clear hygiene practices and for people to focus on their own personal precautions. But we also can’t lose all joy. This will end. We will get through it together.”
Collaboration between the public and private sectors in the battle against COVID-19 in Iceland has garnered attention. We asked Svandís about deCODE genetics’ role and the health care system’s response to the pandemic. “deCODE’s contributions have been invaluable in our battle with the virus. The public health care system has demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, incredible strength and flexibility in this fight. The global pandemic has underscored the importance of having a strong public health care system, and in my opinion, the pandemic is a good encouragement for all of us to continue supporting and strengthening our health care system, and a reminder of how valuable our health care workers are, these people who have given all their energy to fighting the virus,” says Svandís.
Asked about health care workers’ wages, Svandís says, “My opinion is that all health care workers deserve salaries befitting of the responsibilities and pressures they take on, and I mean all sorts of workers in health care and related fields. It’s clear that many of the jobs traditionally dominated by women have not always come with salaries that match the responsibilities and stresses of the job, and that’s not okay – and I have and will continue to support health care workers in their fight for better wages.”
The biggest lesson is undoubtedly being Minister of Health during a global pandemic
We asked Svandís about the easiest and most difficult decisions she’s made since the pandemic began. “The easiest thing was making the decision at the beginning to follow the advice of our most capable people and to trust the research and scientific basis of each decision. We’ve placed a lot of emphasis on communication and transparency. Our tight-knit, well-informed society has demonstrated its strength through each wave of the pandemic. The restrictions and precautions that the virus necessitates have had a tremendous impact on our entire society, including on many people’s jobs and finances, not to mention public health and quality of life for a long time. Our big task now is to try to address these effects as best we can, by assisting those who have lost their jobs or lost income because of the restrictions, for instance.”
It’s difficult to weigh the danger of people becoming infected versus the cost of having everything closed for society as a whole. What weighs heavier in your opinion? “Public health matters greatly and maybe even the most, ensuring that restrictions harm public health as little as possible. I think it’s obvious that we’ve all learned from our experience over the past eight months that the virus has been spreading here in Iceland, and that experience means that we might make different decisions than we did at the beginning,” says Svandís.
We asked Svandís how the civil protection system’s approach has changed in light of the fact that the virus is so unpredictable. “It’s the chief epidemiologist who suggests protocols related to epidemics like the coronavirus. The big challenge now is about learning to live with the virus long-term, so we have to find a balance between imposing restrictive prevention measures and allowing our society to function as normally as possible,” says Svandís, adding that the response to the global pandemic is constantly being reevaluated by the civil defense department of the national commissioner and the chief epidemiologist.”
Asked about her work during her time as minister, Svandís says, “I’m proud of the fact that we’ve succeeded in significantly strengthening the public health care system during our term, by increasing funding, and also by establishing a health policy for Iceland. We’ve completed other large projects related to health care during our term and are still working on several. For example, construction of the new national hospital on Hringbraut is going well, we’ve reduced patients’ financial responsibilities and will reduce them even further, a new law on abortion was passed, and the local clinics strengthened. But there is still plenty of work to be done, and one term in office is nowhere near enough to finish all the projects I’d like to finish. Besides, the nature of this work is such that it is never finished. Numerous opportunities for innovation and development are also a growing part of modern health care. The biggest lesson will undoubtedly be serving as Minister of Health during a global pandemic. I couldn’t have predicted that,” says Svandís.