The material shortage means higher workload on the emergency

An examination room at the emergency clinic at the University Hospital in Örebro has been transformed into a storage room with carts filled with plastic gloves, test tubes and toilet paper. For several weeks now, there have been problems with deliveries of consumables to Region Örebro county, and four other regions, from Apotekstjänst AB.

Instead of having the shelves refilled when something ends, you have to go to the emergency clinic now. And the deliveries that come now vary.

- The deliveries can be very different. It can be very medical stuff, but it can also be a bit of each. It may also be supplies we have ordered, but that do not meet the same standard as we usually have, says Ingunn Granum, acting acting manager at the emergency clinic.

For example, she says, they have received pregnancy tests that they cannot use because they do not measure up to the ones they usually have. But there has also been a good collaboration between various healthcare operations.
In the emergency, you have received a lot of material from others, but also shared with them when the opportunity existed.

- It has been very hectic, we usually put energy into ensuring that we have the material we need, now the deliveries have not been standardized. We have had to inventory everything we have on the shelves and unpack stock and also keep track of what we need and share.

There are trained nurses, with experience, who sorted on the shelves and invented.

- Only the clinical work requires a lot of nursing resources, and now I need to ask people to work twice and extra on a Saturday night to help ensure this. It is a very large device in operation that you do not see from the outside, says Ingunn Granum.

She says that the current situation will be an extra cost, both in terms of extra time and administration regarding invoices. But that patients should have noticed something in the staff position, Ingunn does not believe.

- No they have not, we have not changed anything and it is important for the routines we use are built to secure the patient in a daily life. We want that everyday life as intact as possible, otherwise it can be dangerous.