STOCKHOLM, Dec 3 (EIRNS) — Alarming reports from Sweden about deaths in nursing homes for elderly, and the same recent geometrically rising infection rates as in most other parts of Europe, have put question marks on the Swedish policy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of a resolute response in Sweden has been seen as a better model to handle the virus by those in Europe and the U.S who were opposing the lockdowns, or even doubting the danger of the virus. In reality, this so-called Swedish Model for handling COVID-19 came out of bungled practices of a much wider process of collapse of the Swedish welfare state and its Swedish Model ruling system, including its moral values towards elderly.
On Nov. 27, a total of 6,681 persons had died in Sweden. Nine out of ten of the COVID-19 deaths in Sweden are in the age group 70 years and older. Most of the deaths, 2,800, occurred in nursing homes for the elderly. On Nov. 24, the Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) reported critical deficiencies in the medical care in nursing homes, after inspecting the medical records of 847 of patients with COVID-19 from 98 of 1,700 nursing homes. IVO found that in all Swedish regions there were cases where the elderly had not received individual evaluations from a doctor, some not even from a nurse. Patients and their relatives had also not been informed or been able to influence the treatment decisions.
Already in the spring many upset health personnel, relatives and professors, reported that elderly in nursing homes were not given hospital treatment or even oxygen, when COVID-19 was suspected. Instead, they were declared to be dying and given only palliative care, regularly including morphine. The leading Professor of Geriatrics Yngve Gustafson of Umeå University, in a May 22 interview with Aftonbladet said that in the case of a respiratory disease such as COVID-19, this is killing the patient very fast.
