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Our hospital in Longyearbyen Svalbard

The hospital is located centrally in Longyearbyen. The hospital provides both primary care and specialist health services to the population and visitors to Svalbard. There is free parking by the hospital.

Emergency phone

We offer:

  • Doctor's appointment.
  • Urgent care.
    Acute conditions that cannot be treated are transferred to the University Hospital in Tromsø (UNN) or another relevant hospital on the mainland.
    For surgery, we only offer life-saving stabilisation before the patient is transferred to the mainland. This depends on the availability of a surgeon.
  • Dentist's appointment. A dental hygienist is present 2-4 times a year and an orthodontist 3-5 times a year.
  • Child health clinic. The midwife is responsible for the follow-up of pregnant women and children under school age. Public health nurses supervise schoolchildren.
  • Physiotherapy.
  • Regular X-ray.
  • Plastering for fracture injuries that do not require surgical intervention.

The hospital cannot issue all types of health certificates (e.g. diving certificate, polar bear watch, guide), but helps with some certificates that are job-related, e.g. driving licence.

Svalbard only offers limited health services. 

Longyearbyen Hospital has fewer services than other Norwegian hospitals. Pay particular attention to the following:

  • No psychologists.
  • No delivery room.
  • No CT or MRI.
  • Limited possibilities for medical examination (we have the equivalent of what you can get from your family doctor/emergency room on the mainland.)
  • No scheduled operations.

The transfer of emergency patients to the mainland by air ambulance depends on weather and available aircraft. 

Norwegian citizens:

Automatic members of the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme and have full rights in the welfare system.

  • Paid according to standard deductibles. An overview of user fees can be found online: helsenorge.no
  • Ordinary exemption card rights. (Exemption cards via HELFO are also valid on Svalbard.)
  • Ordinary rights for Patient Travel: Travel, board and lodging are covered at government rates. (Link here)
  • Have the right to referral to the mainland for health services not provided on Svalbard.

Non-Norwegian citizens with a Norwegian employer:

  • Pay the ordinary user fee as mentioned above.
  • Have ordinary rights via Patient Travel as mentioned above.

Tourists and non-Norwegian citizens without a Norwegian employer

Must pay for the consultation/service in full. (This applies e.g. to self-employed permanent residents without a Norwegian passport.)

PLEASE NOTE! Please note that Svalbard is outside Schengen, which may mean that European travel insurance does not cover expenses at the same level as on mainland Norway.

You are defined as a permanent resident of Svalbard when you are registered in the National Population Register as living on Svalbard with a planned stay of longer than six months. 

You are considered a visitor if the stay is shorter than six months. 

The Norwegian website helsenorge.no has important information about issues like GPs, health services and rights, your right to an interpreter, and other things that you should know about when living in Norway. 

Read more on helsenorge.no

Longyearbyen Hospital as of 2023 has 22 full-time employees, of which four are doctors and six are specialist nurses. There are also physiotherapists/manual therapists, public health nurses, midwives and a dentist at the hospital. The optician is present twice a year.

The hospital has six beds, including one intensive care bed with ventilator facilities and one bed for isolation in case of infectious disease. The hospital only hospitalises patients in case of acute incidents/emergency care.

The hospital has round-the-clock emergency preparedness with an on-call team consisting of a doctor, nurse anaesthetist and surgical nurse. 

Getting there

Location in Google Maps

Contact

Booking
79 02 42 00
Phone: Public health nurse Svalbard
79 02 42 21
Mobil public health nurse Svalbard
468 53 791
Physiotherapist / manual therapist Svalbard
79 02 42 26
Dentist Svalbard
79 02 42 30
Postal adress Svalbard
Postboks 314
9171 Longyearbyen

Ask about suicide

The educational film is produced by Vivat Suicide Prevention. The film will give you an introduction to how to identify thoughts about suicide, ask about suicide and help the person to further help.
It may be helpful to watch this presentation with someone else.

 

Last updated 3/14/2024