Without Danish nurses, Greenland’s biggest hospital can’t function

Greenland’s largest hospital cannot keep its wards staffed without a steady supply of workers from Denmark, reports Danish public broadcaster DR.

Last year, 121 different nurses passed through the 24 full-time nursing posts in the medical department at Dronning Ingrids Hospital in Nuuk. That means the average nurse lasted just two and a half months on the job.

The department’s chief nurse has worked in Greenland for four decades. She told DR the shortage isn’t unusual. It’s close to the normal state of affairs.

“We lack really, really many nurses, so we rely on a lot of agency nurses. We’re dependent on people coming to help us,” she said.

Next week the department will be short nine. The constant churn has a cost, she added: staff unfamiliar with local routines unsettle patients, and mistakes happen.

Greenland’s health service is trying to fix this with a new deal with Danish Regions, the body representing Denmark’s regional health authorities. It pairs hospital departments in Greenland directly with counterparts in Denmark.

Under the arrangement, Danish doctors and nurses would volunteer for roughly three-month stints in Greenland. The goal is to send the same faces back again and again, instead of an endless string of strangers.

Whether it works depends on Danish departments having nurses to spare, something the chief nurse isn’t sure they do.