During the corona pandemic, both national and regional guidelines for how intensive care should be prioritized among seriously ill patients. The idea is that the guidelines should be used if there is a situation where the intensive care units are running out.

But despite the fact that there are still vacancies, nursing staff testify that the priorities have become narrower in several places - especially in Stockholm where the pressure has been great.

She alerted the IVO

Anna Jansson, chief medical officer at the emergency medical unit at Karolinska, is one of those who has contacted the Inspection for Health and Care, IVO.

- I reacted to the fact that maybe patients prioritized which patients would receive intensive care in other hospitals, we had seen some patient examples of that. As a doctor, you have to alert if you see that we may not do what we should do for the patients, she says.

At the same time, Anna Jansson believes that medical assessments of which treatments benefit the patient are always part of the care, so she does not feel that it has become so much more stringent in connection with the pandemic. Unlike several other doctors with whom SVT has talked.

- I think there was a shock wave through the health care system and that they started crisis management according to the new rules even though they would actually be used at a later stage, says one of the doctors with whom SVT has been in contact.

The doctor wants to be anonymous - just like several other doctors from within the healthcare system who raise the issue of tougher priorities in intensive care.

The Inspection for Healthcare and Care, IVO, has in recent weeks also received a number of tips linked to selection in IVA care in the Stockholm region.

Anonymous tips for IVO

SVT News has taken note of five of the anonymous tips submitted to IVO (see fact box). Several are about Karolinska University Hospital and how renal covid patients are prioritized. Something that led IVO to initiate an oversight of the hospital last Friday.

Björn Eriksson, the Director of Health in the Stockholm region, welcomes IVO's review.

- We have been very careful that we in Stockholm make the same medical priorities and that it is ordinary medical priorities that apply as long as we have places.