Protest against cuts in health care

On Saturday, medical marches were organized in Gothenburg and Stockholm. In Gothenburg, primarily healthcare professionals gathered to protest against cuts and savings in healthcare in Gothenburg.

- I'm going to live an entire professional life, as it seems today I do not. Colleagues quit, experienced midwives quit and barely newly graduated midwives want to come to childbirth, says Lucille M'boge Fredriksson, midwife in childbirth.

She says that the workload is high and she sees that many employees are unable to cope.

- We want politicians and decision-makers to listen to us who work in healthcare and patients. We need the right resources to get patient-safe care and a decent working environment. Pulling down on care is not the right path, says Lucille M'boge Fredriksson.

Among other things, 400 services at Sahlgrenska University Hospital will be removed during next year, a decision made by Sahlgrenska's board in November. It is worrying that specialist physician Sven Svedmyr, who has already seen the pulmonary medicine department, had to temporarily close for 12 months due to staff shortages.

- It's very frustrating. Both to feel that we cannot give our patients the optimal care we want and to take care of them in the very best way. We do everything we can. Then it is also very frustrating to see employees as dangerously ill of this, says Sven Svedmyr, specialist physician internal medicine at the lung clinic Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

Henrik Ripa (M) chairman of the board of Sahlgrenska University Hospital says that the 400 services that will be removed are not about any notice.

- We don't work with notice. We have staff turnover which means that we will not return certain services. But we will look at where the needs are so that it will affect the business as little as possible, says Henrik Ripa.

Specialist physician Sven Svedmyr explains that the limit for healthcare has passed.

- You are being hugely pressured by today's healthcare. You become frustrated when you exert yourself and exert yourself, but new emergencies are constantly emerging that break down what you have built up and try to maintain.

Chairman Henrik Ripa (M) explains that there are two pictures of it all.

- We really take this concern very seriously. All of these stories are important to us. There are two pictures in the whole, on the one hand we have not had as much money as now, but the costs increase faster than the money we receive extra. Then it becomes that we have to rationalize elsewhere, he says.