– The research points out is that people who need help and do not get it, live with anxiety, have difficulty concentrating in school and on education.
– Because you are in an eternal state of emergency, says Preben Engelbrekt, psychotherapist and director of the National Grief Center.
But the study also shows that far from everyone is offered the help they need according to the Danish Health and Medicines Authority’s recommendations.
Thus, four out of five health employees answer that they do not involve children and young people in the course of the disease, even though it is recommended by the National Board of Health. And three out of four managers surveyed are unaware of the recommendations.
One of those who has been left without help in the system is 20-year-old Martha Bo. When she was 14, her mother was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer. No one from the hospital at the time grabbed her or her smaller siblings.
– I should try to be a normal teenager and at the same time process all the big thoughts that filled. About how my mother felt and how my father and siblings felt, she says.
– I walked around thinking: Why am I so sad all the time?
According to the Danish Nurses’ Council, the lack of structures in the area is the reason why the young relatives are often overlooked.
– It is not a lack of will. But there is no clear direction for who should make the cover.
– Instead of us helping them, it ends up that everyone thinks that there are probably others who do. That there are probably others who have asked about it, says chairman Grete Christensen.
Together with the Danish Cancer Society and the Danish Nurses’ Council, the National Grief Center therefore believes that help for young relatives must be guaranteed by law.
– Now ten years have passed with the Danish Health and Medicines Authority’s recommendations, and virtually nothing has happened, says Preben Engelbrekt and refers to Norway, where legislation according to him has created the necessary systematics.
In Norway, it is statutory that a hospital responsible for children must be appointed at all hospitals. The person in question must coordinate the work with the young relatives and offer or refer to help where necessary.
In addition to ensuring systematics, Grete Christensen and Preben Engelbrekt hope that legislation will mean that health professionals receive professional qualification for the area.
– Those who go to the oncology department with different cancer specialties are not necessarily trained in how to handle the accompanying children. We must also ensure that healthcare professionals are trained for this, says Grete Christensen.
Martha ended up seeking out Children, Youth & Grief herself when she started high school.
Looking back on her teenage years, when an unprocessed grief in many situations took the profits, she wished she had already been offered help or information as a 14-year-old about how it is normal to react in a crisis situation.
Or information about what offers you have. Also to my parents, because they had never tried it before and stood alone with it all, she says.
If it is up to SF, the subject must be taken up in the Folketing. Social rapporteur Trine Torp will have an account of what the legislation has brought with it in our neighboring countries before proposing it here at home.
Source: The Nordic Page