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In several articles, DN has described how the Stockholm Region lags behind in vaccinating the elderly with home care and home health care compared to all other regions in the country. Currently, two percent of the elderly with home care have received two doses of the vaccine, compared with 25 percent nationwide, according to statistics from the Swedish Public Health Agency.
The region has also chosen to reduce the group with home care to the highest priority group, with only the elderly with care interventions having the highest priority. At the same time, the vaccination of health professionals has been prioritized and, so far, those over 70 years of age are a minority among all those vaccinated in the region.
Regional Health Care Advisor Anna Starbrink (left) has previously said that it was a strategic choice to prioritize health care staff to manage emergency care.
The Social Democrats are now demanding that a committee of older people be appointed to remedy the deficiencies.
– We want to get to the bottom of what happened. We want information and a survey and external experts to examine this. It is the people who get sick and, in the worst case, it is the elderly who die. We are now on the way to a third wave, and it is important that the senior citizens commission be appointed now, says Aida Hadzialic (S), regional councilor for the opposition in the Stockholm Region.
Is the Crown Commission not enough?
– The Crown Commission covers the whole country, but we see that Stockholm stands out. Now it is also clear that the elderly have not received the vaccine to which they are entitled.
In a discussion article in Expressen, Hadzialic, along with his party colleague Karin Wanngård, the mayor of the opposition in the city of Stockholm, states that Stockholm has been hit hard by the pandemic, with a high spread of infection and many deaths among the elderly, especially in the care of the elderly, and that deficiencies need to be further analyzed.
According to S, a commission of elders would investigate, among other things, what medical basis was the basis for deviating from the priority order of vaccination of the Public Health Agency, what groups of personnel, in addition to those under the close care of covid , were vaccinated rather than elderly with home care and those who received surviving doses of vaccine. According to S, the Commission would examine whether the principle of providing the most fragile vaccine has been abandoned first, as well as what organizational changes are necessary to better meet the individual care needs of older people.
As DN has reported, the Stockholm Region, along with several other regions, has chosen to prioritize the vaccination of certain healthcare personnel. This happened in January and the intensive care staff started getting vaccinated on January 12.
The Social Democrats did not oppose the decision at the time. What happened?
– The Stockholm region has received sufficient doses to cope with both the vaccination of care staff both in covid care and in relation to covid care, but we have received enough to vaccinate the elderly at the same time. We are very questioning why this has not happened. There is great uncertainty about what is happening in the Stockholm region, says Aida Hadzialic.
As a reason for the situation that has arisen, it has been pointed out that the Region has received very little vaccine, but this is not the case according to the Social Democrats.
– I am extremely critical of these fog curtains – The Stockholm region has received distributed vaccines in relation to the proportion of elderly and people at risk. The question then is why Stockholm in particular has failed so fatally.
DN has sought representatives of the regional blue-green administration for comment. Desiree Pethrus (KD), Regional Health Care Development Council, comments in writing:
– We are not afraid of reviews, but at the moment they are of no help. Now we must allow health workers to do their jobs. Then it is important to note that the Stockholm Region received 80 percent fewer vaccine doses than promised in January and February. And it is the Social Democrats who in the Swedish government are responsible for producing more vaccines. Now it is a national vaccine crisis, not a regional one. There is no competition between regions. Everybody needs more vaccines, Desiree Pethrus writes and continues:
– I understand the frustration of our elders who are waiting for vaccines. We are all frustrated, but we are prepared to get vaccinated as soon as we receive the vaccine from the state.
Read more:
Stockholm still lags far behind in vaccinating the elderly
