[Should the community pay for hospitalized patients waiting for transfer to nursing homes?]

Many hospital patients are on waiting lists for transferral to nursing homes. In a retrospective study, all patients (n = 75) hospitalised at the Department of Oncology, University Hospital of Tromsø until their death and all patients (n = 20) transferred to nursing homes from the same department during a 23-month period were registered. The duration of hospitalisation was 1-111 days (median 10 days) for the first group and 1-39 days (median 8 days) for the second group. 23 out of 32 patients (72%) hospitalised more than 14 days were from the city of Tromsø. This city and other municipalities should be required by law to pay the hospital for patients on waiting list for nursing homes. Today, 4 out of 16 major Norwegian hospitals have such arrangements.