The Swedish health authority is sounding the alarm over “appalling and completely unacceptable” conditions in hospitals. Patients could hardly be adequately cared for and there was also a lack of medication in the emergency department.
On Thursday, the Public Health and Welfare Inspectorate (Ivo) presented a report on the health situation in Sweden. 27 hospitals in 21 regions of the country were examined more closely – the conclusion is devastating.
“Patients lie in their own stool”
“Patients do not get enough food and drink and do not receive basic treatment. According to our information, patients may have to lie in their own stool and urine for several hours,” the Swedish news agency TT quoted Peder Carlsson as saying.
The inspections revealed serious shortcomings leading to a serious shortage of staff, so that the treatment of the patients was unacceptable. Carlsson went on to explain that half of the hospitals surveyed were forced to send home weekly people who should have been admitted from the emergency room.
The regulator said the shortage of available hospital beds is exaggerated, which has led to this overcrowding. Patients have to be cared for on the corridors or sometimes end up in departments that do not have the necessary competences to treat the specific illness or injury.
Medicines are also scarce
“This is a terrible situation, totally unacceptable (…) We have examples of patients with sepsis being sent home instead of hospitalized and given antibiotics,” Carlsson continued. Half of the emergency department also indicate that the staff are unable to administer the medication that the patient actually needs.
The situation also hits the country in a huge corona wave. At the end of December, the number of deaths directly related to Covid disease rose to a higher level than in the strongest infection wave of the previous year.
Source: Krone
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