Swedish gov't fails to protect elderly during pandemic: report
Published : 16 Dec 2020, 12:12
Sweden "has failed" in its strategy to specifically protecting the elderly amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said an investigative report released Tuesday by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, reported Xinhua.
"We have at this moment already been able to conclude that the part of Swedish strategies which aimed at protecting the elderly has failed. There is no other way of putting it considering how many have died of COVID-19," said Mats Melin, chairman of the Corona Commission, a state-appointed body which conducted the probe.
In Sweden, 3,002 people who lived in long-term care facilities and 1,696 elderly people in home-care died of COVID-19 between March and November, according to data from the National Board of Health and Welfare.
The commission revealed in the interim report that a mix of structural shortcomings and insufficient measures has left Sweden's elderly care system unprepared and ill-equipped during the pandemic.
The structural problems include fragmented governmental organization and decentralized responsibility in facing a health care crisis, as well as a shortage of staff, expertise and reasonable working conditions, said the report.
Meanwhile, specific decisions and measures often come too late, and sometimes are insufficient, as shown in the lack of attention to elderly care at early stages of the outbreak, late testing, and personal protective equipment shortage, it said.
While local governments and private actors share responsibility for the crisis, current and previous state governments are ultimately responsible for failing to fix structural problems, Melin told a conference.
The commission intended to present its second report in October next year and submit the final report by early 2022 after a thorough look into the crisis.