BUP manager: "More staff is needed to cut queues"

Child and adolescent psychiatry in Uppsala County has long struggled with long queues and scarce resources. Three years ago, the BUP departments in Enköping, Tierp and Östhammar were closed. In Enköping, it reopened in April 2018.

Deputy Head of Department Lena Silén has worked in psychiatry here since the early 2000s. She says that search pressure has increased by 50 percent over the last ten years.

- But we haven't got more resources. It goes without saying that we cannot take care of all patients then, she says.

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Lena Silén believes that more staff and higher salaries are needed to attract more people to employment. Therefore, she has no great hope that the queues will completely disappear solely with the new goal set by the Health and Medical Committee. Earlier this week, the committee decided to set a new goal that all queues for BUP should be gone in a year, something that UNT was the first to report. A report made by Kerstin Evelius on behalf of Region Uppsala during the spring is used as the basis for the objective.

Lena Silén does not feel that the report comes with that much new.

- It is very much about the fact that we must cooperate, cooperate and that care ends up at the right level. You might say more clearly with a first line today than you did before, says Lena Silén.

One problem for BUP is that many parents contact them in all types of cases relating to mental illness, while BUP's assignment is much more limited with only specialist care.

- In Enköping, you are now investing in a care center where you will gather all resources. In these centers, I hope that there are people with a lot of knowledge who can refer patients to the right institution. I think this can be a way to reduce the pressure on BUP's telephone counseling where you call about everything as soon as you experience mental illness, says Lena Silén.