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From: TT
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Photo: Johan Nilsson / TT
Nikolaus Groll, Anesthesia and Intensive Care Specialist at Blekinge Hospital.
Swedish healthcare needs to be better coordinated. That is the message when seven health workers meet with the Prime Minister.
– Right now in Blekinge we have very empty plots in the intensive care units, but Skåne is having a hard time. Still, we don’t have patients. We don’t understand why, says vat doctor Nikolaus Groll.
When it was at its worst in the spring, it was with some colleagues from this region and it was working, even when Blekinge was relatively safe. But it was on his own initiative and quite difficult to achieve organizationally, he tells Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in a digital meeting with healthcare staff from Blekinge, Skåne and Västerbotten.
– It was through private contacts. I called a friend and asked if we would come.
Nikolaus Groll anticipates that the treatment pressure will change once during the pandemic and Blekinge may well get into a difficult situation later on. Then he wants to know that it is possible to get staff from other parts of the country, or that it is possible to send patients to other regions.
Stefan Löfven refers to the coordination task that the National Board of Health and Welfare has received from the government. But Camilla Brorsson, who has administrative responsibility for iva in Umeå, testifies that it does not work.
– I tried to get a name from the National Board of Health and Welfare on who is responsible for the distribution of staff, but so far it has been impossible, he says.
Compete with Canada
You also think that purchases of health care supplies are very poorly coordinated.
– We have protective equipment on site and we have roads prepared to place orders. The problem is that each region continues to buy its own needs and national coordination is largely lacking. Then we compete, for example, with Canada, which buys billions of gloves, while a Swedish region places an order for a few thousand.
Camilla Brorsson, who is also president of the Swedish Intensive Care Association, also calls for national targets for how many intensive care places per 100,000 inhabitants should be in each region. Today there are too many differences, he believes.
– It should be the same for everyone in our country, is his message to the Prime Minister.
Martin Ahlström, IVA doctor at Skåne University Hospital, sees trends towards a reduced ability to work together in times of crisis, both between hospitals and between regions.
– I think we would feel good to have a state healthcare in certain situations, he says.
Nikolaus Groll has reached the same conclusion during the pandemic:
– State healthcare would have been good in a crisis situation, he says.
Regions are responsible
Stefan Löfven emphasizes that it is not possible to reorganize medical care during the ongoing pandemic.
– It would get significantly worse. It would not work.
Ultimately, it is the regions that are responsible for healthcare. That’s a fact, he says, and the government is trying to support him by allocating resources. After hearing stories from caregivers about how cross-region coordination currently works, she says it’s obvious that more needs to be done.
– In the long run, we will see when the Crown Commission has done its job. It will also include precisely this with the division of responsibilities between different levels. We’ll just have to wait to see what they’ll come up with, but that discussion will come, there’s no question about it, says Löfven.
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