Varde to close three nursing homes in budget cuts

Varde Municipality will close three nursing homes as part of its budget through 2030, DR reports, including Sognelunden in Agerbæk, where 91-year-old Hans Christian Thuesen lives.

Twenty-four of the 25 members of Varde Municipal Council support the budget. Although Thuesen will be allowed to remain at Sognelunden, he says the decision is a shock and worries that future residents will have to move to another town to receive nursing home care.

“It means everything. We moved to this town in 1940, so we have lived here through the war,” Thuesen said. “If I could not live here, I would have found a coffin.”

He rejected the suggestion that he could move to a nursing home in a neighbouring town.

“No, no, no. We have our good home here, and we want to keep it,” he said.

The municipality says current residents will not be forced to leave. They can choose to move to another nursing home, but those who do not want to move can remain at Sognelunden until they no longer live there. As a result, the closures will take place over several years.

The other nursing homes scheduled to close are in Oksbøl and Outrup. The municipality plans to concentrate its resources in fewer homes, which council member Henrik Vej Kastrupsen of the Conservative People’s Party said would strengthen professional expertise and help prevent staff shortages.

“It is also about creating units with a high level of professional expertise. That can also exist in a small nursing home, but larger nursing homes offer other possibilities,” Kastrupsen said.

He acknowledged that saving money was the fundamental reason for the closures.

“The fundamental reason is that we need to save money in Varde Municipality, but it is a difficult decision,” he said.

Heidi Andreasen, a social and health care assistant who has worked at Sognelunden for three and a half years, said the closure came as a shock. She rejected the municipality’s arguments about expertise and recruitment.

“I cannot see that our professional expertise should be worse than anyone else’s. We do not have a nurse just around the corner, so we have to manage on our own,” Andreasen said.

“We do not have a recruitment problem either. We have no vacant positions, so I cannot see that argument holding up,” she said.

Thuesen said the decision was unacceptable.

“It does not work. You cannot do something like this. It is completely crazy,” he said.