Tvangsflytning fra plejehjem til plejehjem

Politically enforced closing down and relocations of nursing homes are common in many municipalities. Through the construction of a specific nursing home relocation and interviews with the staff, residents, and relatives, this article describes how the relocation has occurred and has been handled as seen from the perspectives of both the elderly, their relatives, and the staff, as well as the impact, this relocation has had on these groups of people. Hermeneutically inspired analyses are unfolded within the categories “The political decision to relocate the nursing home”, “Information to and the involvement of the participants in the relocation process”, “The actual practical relocation”, and “The new life – deprivations and benefits”. The article shows that a relocation of a nursing home and its residents and employees is a municipal, economically based decision with implications for both the residents and their everyday lives, for the relatives of the residents because of their concerns and guilty consciences regarding causing disturbance of the everyday lives of their relatives, and for the staff and their working lives. The common fate for the staff, the residents, and their relatives appears to be both a consolation and a drive to make a success out of something which is inevitable and necessary.