Health care has been mobilized to take care of the seriously ill in covid-19, for example by creating new intensive care sites. But most of those who have died in Västernorrland have never been hospitalized, despite the absence of intensive care plates.

Conscious strategy

Of the 13 deaths that occurred in the county, nine people have died in elderly homes, without hospital care. A deliberate strategy, according to Hans Boman.

- Depending on what you have for basic diseases, you may have made the position that you should not end up in intensive care, he says.

Elderly people in elderly homes affected by the corona virus do not receive hospital care is more a rule than exception.

- These are individual assessments, says Hans Boman, who believes that many people of high age who are seriously ill and have serious conditions of various kinds can end up in the situation that they make the assessment that intensive care or hospital care is not relevant.

Risk of intensive care

According to Hans Boman, the decision not to use hospital care for the seriously ill is done in consultation with the patient and relatives, and he believes that the starting point is to do what is right in the current situation. Moving a seriously ill patient affected by covid-19 to be able to intensive care with a respirator, for example, can be a risk in itself.

In the clip, the infection control physician Hans Boman explains why hospital care does not take care of everyone who becomes seriously ill in covid-19.