SVT Stockholm has recently been able to tell us that an audit report commissioned by the Health and Medical Administration addresses serious criticism that Stockholm Center for Eating Disorders, SCÄ has taken care money for its research projects, to a total of at least SEK 9 million. This corresponds to approximately care for 1,800 patients over four years.
But already in 2018, staff tried to point out to the county council's top management what was going on, shows emails that SVT Stockholm has taken part in. In the e-mail that former Head of Unit Ronnie Salo sent in December 2018 states, among other things: "I am very concerned about what is going on and what has been going on for a long time."
Got fired from SCÄ
Christel Nordlander Ström, who was the administrative head of the clinic, says she was forced to quit because she criticized the management for having taken care money into research. And she is supported by former managers at the Stockholm Center for Eating Disorders.
"They got rid of the one who had the best knowledge about budget and who had argued that this is not allowed," says Ronnie Salo, who previously worked as unit manager at SCÄ.
The severance agreement states that the fired manager, Christel Nordlander Ström, quit at his own request for a severance pay. But she did not leave the clinic of free will. She believes that the management also wanted to cover her with mucous breeding, which included another detail of the agreement.
- The condition that was oral was that I would not talk to Assignment Review.
Freedom of expression expert on the agreement
Telling public employees not to talk to journalists is illegal. And agreeing to someone's freedom of speech is not possible. If the information is correct, it is serious, says Nils Funcke, who is an expert on freedom of expression and public administration.
HR Director Ann-Charlotte Francis and Head of Operations Yvonne von Hauswolff Julin at Stockholm's Center for Eating Disorders do not want to be interviewed by SVT Stockholm. But Anna Stenseth, the highest director of psychiatry in Stockholm County Council, is on the phone. She who by e-mail received information that Christel Nordlander Ström risked being fired for her criticism.
- I took part of that email and after that we looked more closely at whether there was anything in the criticism about the care money. In our internal review, we found that it was not right that money for care instead went to research, ”she says.
How can you come to a different conclusion than the external review that the Health and Medical Administration came to?
- That's what we're going to look at now.
How do you see the former head of SCÄ saying she was fired because she criticized the management there?
- I don't see any connection between her criticism and that she had to stop
Have you told her that she can't talk to Assignment Review after she quit SCÄ?
I have not been involved in concluding this person so I cannot go into that question.