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Protection of the elderly was important to Sweden in the fight against the virus, but it was not successful. The number of victims is high, nobody really feels responsible.
When Sweden embarked on its special path in the Corona crisis, there was a promise for the country’s elders: a wall would be built around them. It was clear to everyone that in a society that relied on voluntary will rather than prohibition, at-risk groups had to receive special protection.
The protection of the elderly has been declared a central pillar of the Swedish course. And shortly before Easter it was clear: this part of the strategy had “catastrophically failed” like the tabloid. Aftonbladet otherwise a faithful supporter of the Swedish line wrote.
Sweden counted more than triple Covid-19 deaths than its neighbors Denmark (529), Finland (271) and Norway (219) combined with 3,256 kills in the crown on Monday. And last week’s National Office of Health and Welfare statistics show that more than half of the deaths were in nursing homes and nursing homes and among people served at home by nursing services. The numbers here were also much higher than in neighboring countries. Sweden “sacrificed the old,” the Finnish state broadcaster YLE once said on its website.
Swedish officials, otherwise self-assured, now admit their failure on this point. However, they like to record their “surprise”, as did the head of the health authority, Johan Carlson, in a talk show over the weekend: No one knew how bad the state of care for the elderly was. in the country, Carlson said.
Paper napkins with stapled rubber that serve as a mouth guard
No less than everyone who knows Sweden’s nursing homes. Everyone could have known “what was going to happen,” Ingmar Skoog, a professor of aging and health in Gothenburg, told the TT news agency in April. The crown crisis only exposed deficiencies that had been systematic for years.
Savings and privatizations in the sector have meant that everything is missing in retirement homes. “They had paper napkins there and they stuck gums on them, it was their face masks,” a doctor in Sweden told SZ about acquaintances working in nursing homes. “We were the worst of all the Nordic countries when it came to saving our elderly,” writes Aftonbladet: Privatization of the sector went much further in Sweden than in neighboring countries. “Greed and privatization are now proving deadly.”
The government is now investigating what went wrong. Critics point to a lot of mistakes: the high fluctuation among low-paid geriatric nurses who work hourly wages and can’t afford to stay home if they scratch their throats.
The fact that these personnel have never been tested on Covid-19. Or the fact that the health authority had never taken the risk of asymptomatic infections seriously. “The biggest mistake was that they only told house staff: Stay home if you feel sick,” said author and virologist Lena Einhorn of the SZ.
Authorities have recognized that they need to quickly monitor the situation in nursing homes. “It all depends on that now,” said state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. Otherwise, the country faces between 8,000 and 20,000 deaths, says mathematician Tom Britton of Stockholm University.
The government emphasizes that it has now taken strict measures. The number of infections in households now appears to have declined, as do those across the country. And Prime Minister Stefan Löfven promised “to improve conditions in geriatric care” without giving details.
No one seems to be really responsible for how the virus spread in nursing homes right now. Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren said on SVT that “as a society, we would take responsibility.” Critics don’t want to release the government so easily.
Journalist Björn Hygstedt spoke of his anger on the same station. Hygstedt’s father, 92, had contracted a crown in a nursing home and died without a loved one by his side. Hygstedt had written a widely read text on his father’s death. And he is sure that it is the fault of the authorities. “Your failure has cost so many lives.”
Crown Demos: Recklessness or Civil Rights?:Readers’ discussion
