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More and more employees in the healthcare sector in Sweden are leaving the profession during the corona pandemic. The care union tells SVT that the staff simply can’t cope anymore.
The second wave of the corona pandemic has caused many caregivers in Sweden to be absent due to illness and the balance of overtime in medical care is now just over two million hours.
– The staff just can’t stand it, Josefine Lundqvist, nurse and union representative for the Healthcare Association, tells SVT.
70 percent quit the infection room
The country’s infection and emergency departments have been hit the hardest, and staff have resigned in large numbers.
In the infection ward at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm, 34 out of 50 nurses have resigned since January this year.
During the same period, 28 new nurses were hired according to the hospital.
Josefine Lundqvist from Vårdförbundet is concerned that the nurses who left had a common 320-year experience; the experience of new employees is a total of five years.
Even if the new ones are super talented, business suffers, Lundqvist emphasizes.
Danderyd Hospital management, meanwhile, says operations have continued without interruption, despite the layoffs.
In the Stockholm Region, just over 3,600 have resigned since March, almost 900 more than last year.
The same trend elsewhere
At Linköping University Hospital in the Östergötland region, emergency room personnel have been lost, several during the second wave of the pandemic.
Emma Klingvall, department head of the Healthcare Association in Östergötland, says many people love their job, but the way the employer treats them makes them wonder if it’s worth it.
– You don’t have the same strength and loyalty as you did in the spring, says Klingvall.
The Östergötland region does not comment on the redundancies in Linköping, but says that it otherwise also has relatively high staff turnover.
Appeal to the Swedish Transport Administration about personnel
Stockholm region health director Björn Eriksson today asked for help to attract more caregivers.
Among other things, Eriksson has asked the Swedish Transport Administration for help.
The Swedish Transport Administration has sent a question to its employees if there are carers among whom they could intervene, reports Swedish Radio.
Swedish Transport Administration press director Bengt Olsson says there may be trained health care personnel in such a large staff pool.
The Stockholm Region issued an appeal earlier this week for help from the Armed Forces when intensive care personnel are no longer sufficient. It is also expected to receive emergency aid from other municipalities and regions.
Finland ready to help
Here at home, the Chancellor of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Kirsi Varhila, tells Svenska Dagbladet (behind the payment wall) that it is also possible to free up space for Swedish patients.
The question has become relevant due to the fact that intensive care in Stockholm, but also elsewhere, is almost complete.
– We have not received any official request for help, says Varhila.
Of course, we are prepared to help Sweden if we can, he adds.
