Norway’s National Hospital updated lung transplant prioritization process
At the same time that the lung transplant waiting list dropped sharply, Rikshospitalet, Norway’s national hospital, quietly updated its prioritization process. This is evident from metadata on the hospital’s website.
June 6, 2026
Rikshospitalet Oslo, Photo; Kjetil Ree, Wikipedia Commons
Norway operates a publicly funded healthcare system, and lung transplant candidates are prioritized according to medical criteria regardless of social status. Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who is currently on the lung transplant waiting list, is therefore subject to the same prioritization framework as other patients awaiting transplantation.
Public information on lung transplant prioritization
Public documentation on lung transplantation is available through the eHandbook of Oslo University Hospital, of which Rikshospitalet is a part. The document is titled “Indications and Prioritization for Lung Transplantation” and can be found here.
At the top of the document, it states that this is Version 4, effective from October 17, 2025. Further down, the document identifies Senior Physician Are Martin Holm as its author.
It has not been possible to locate the three previous versions of “Indications and Prioritization for Lung Transplantation.” By comparison, the document “Prioritization for Heart Transplantation” exists in only one version, which has been in effect since June 26, 2023.
The first three versions are not available as web pages, PDFs, or in any other publicly accessible format. This means that the original document, as well as the changes introduced in Versions 2, 3, and 4, cannot be verified in a satisfactory manner by the public—even if the documents were to become available.
Coincides with two significant anomalies in waiting list reporting
Yesterday, Society and Politics published an article revealing two significant anomalies in lung transplant waiting-list reporting that resulted in a sudden drop in the number of patients on the list. Read more here.
The sudden and persistent decline in the number of patients occurred during the same period last autumn in which Version 4 of “Indications and Prioritization for Lung Transplantation” was published.
Technical Findings
The technical findings are evident in metadata and are confirmed by the source code. Version 4 was created on October 17, 2025, by Are Martin Holm. The metadata further states:
“Updated description of the prioritization process for lung transplantation.”
The source code contains corresponding information. It also shows that the eHandbook system includes functionality for comparing documents with previous versions. Document 112875 is marked as a document that can be compared with earlier versions; however, public users have not been granted access to this functionality.
The technical evidence can be found in the sources listed at the end of this article.
Neither communicated nor documented
Senior Physician Are Martin Holm, who appeared at two press conferences concerning Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s lung transplantation, stated at yesterday’s press conference that there are currently fewer patients than normal on the waiting list. He attributed this to natural fluctuations and said that the numbers are expected to rise again. As noted above, Samfunn og Politikk has identified anomalies on a scale that does not seem to correspond to normal fluctuations
This article establishes an additional finding: the prioritization process for lung transplantation was updated without any public communication or documentation explaining what was changed.
THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF AT SERIES
Norway National Hospital updated the prioritization process for lung transplantation at the same time as a sudden drop in the number of patients on the list
SOURCES
OUS/Rikshospitalet (OUS/Norwegian National Hospital)
Indications and Prioritization for Lung TransplantationSociety and Politics
Metadata from the OUS/Rikshospitalet eHandbook
Source Code from the OUS/Rikshospitalet eHandbook