The situation at Sweden’s hospitals “terrible and completely unacceptable”
LONDON
Sweden’s health watchdog has expressed concern over the state of hospital care in the country, saying patients are not given enough food or water, are left in their own feces for hours and are being discharged despite urgently needing care, local media reported on Friday.
The Inspectorate for Care and Care (IVO) described the situation as “terrible and completely unacceptable”.
– The patients do not receive an acceptable amount of food, liquid or basic treatment and according to our information, patients may be required to lie in their own feces for several hours, says Peder Carlsson, who led the inspection at IVO, to TT. News agency.
He added that the health watchdog discovered major deficiencies in Swedish healthcare with a large staff shortage, which contributed to patients not receiving adequate treatment.
“This is a terrible situation, totally unacceptable and it is particularly striking that this is happening in the hospitals we have in our country,” expressed Carlsson.
In January 2022, IVO started a coherent national supervision of Swedish hospital care in all 21 regional health authorities. It has so far made supervisory decisions for 27 hospitals.
According to Carlsson, half of the hospitals claimed during questioning that they were forced to send the patient away from emergency care, who should actually have been hospitalized, and that the hospital staff could not give the patients the right medicine on the right. time.
“We have examples of patients with sepsis being sent home instead of being admitted and given antibiotics,” he revealed.
In its findings, the watchdog said the most basic patient safety measures are not being met, and people are being cared for for long periods of time in corridors and other privacy-infringing and inappropriate places, without getting enough food, water or even help to go to the toilet.
The inspection revealed that staff did not bring a defibrillator to a patient in cardiac arrest because patients are treated in the corridor.
It also emerged that medical supervision does not take place based on the patients’ medical needs, but on the basis of available equipment and personnel.
According to the watchdog, the medical results in Swedish care stand out well in international comparisons, while Swedish care performs worse than comparable countries in terms of waiting times and number of care places.
The IVO warned that if the regions do not improve the situation for patients in emergency hospitals within a reasonable time, fines and bans on operations will be imposed to protect patients.
“Care that is not patient safe must not be allowed to continue,” it said.
