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People living in Swedish nursing homes have received palliative care without even undergoing a medical examination.
“Only one person per department was evaluated. If that patient was positive, all those with the slightest symptoms of a cold were classified as ‘suspects’ and received palliative care, without the supervision of a doctor,” a nurse from the Hammarhus nursing home in Gothenburg.
The Health and Care Inspectorate, Ivo, has concluded that many older people have been denied the individual medical care to which they are legally entitled during the pandemic.
Ivo has reviewed patient records for suspected covid disease in almost a hundred nursing homes across the country and conducted a series of interviews. The authority has selected homes where there have been alarm signals. However, the result was shocking.
One fifth of patients had not received an individual medical evaluation. Doctors rarely visited homes and palliative care was provided without first talking to family members.
The alarm report is not a comprehensive survey of the care of the elderly in Sweden. One might still think that such a government audit would spark an intense political debate about what can be done to prevent a repeat of wrongdoing. Should nursing homes be allowed to hire or hire their own doctors? Are more nurses needed? Should the state introduce minimum staffing requirements? And so.
But the debate so far has largely sounded like this:
“The regions of the country are responsible for the fact that the elderly in nursing homes have not received the care to which they are entitled during the ongoing pandemic,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said in an interview with DN last week.
“Take responsibility Löfven, do not blame the regions,” wrote eleven presidents of Sweden’s regions in a discussion article on SvD this week.
On Wednesday’s DN debate page, Sweden’s management of the Municipalities and Regions (SKR) wrote and criticized the state for late or missed decisions that have created difficulties in, among other things, the care of the elderly.
It has often been unclear responsibility resided during the crown crisis. In nursing homes, regions are responsible for medical care and municipalities for nurses. The National Board of Health and Welfare (that is, the state) has issued recommendations and purchased protective equipment. When irregularities or deficiencies are discovered, municipal and regional representatives point to the state and vice versa.
It is always someone else’s fault, no one has full responsibility in the debate on the crown crisis. What should have been steeped in cooperation easily turns into turf battles, and now it seems that it has happened again.
Read more:
Regions question the Ivo report: qualify criticism with nuances
Nurse in a nursing home: presumed infected received palliative care without proof of covid
