Encouraged to get mom out of closed living in Götene

- It will be a way to circumvent the ban on visitors, says Anna-Lena Bingström, whose 96-year-old mother lives there.

"Why don't you come here and pick up your mom on a walk?" Anna-Lena Bingström claims that the question was received from the elderly residence Helenagården in Götene. Anna-Lena was very surprised because there is a ban on visitors.

- If I were to go out with my mother, it was about driving her in a wheelchair and then I get very close, says Anna-Lena.

She called the unit manager, who said that the municipality had decided that relatives could take the residents out for a walk. Anna-Lena was upset and IVO notified the municipality.

- It's no wonder if infection enters the homes of the elderly. My sister was thinking about going here, but didn't. It was lucky, because she then fell ill in what we think is covid-19, says Anna-Lena Bingström.

Other unit managers SVT spoke to confirmed that it is possible for relatives to pick up the elderly for a walk and that the staff then dress the residents and leave them outside, often in a wheelchair. When SVT first contacts the municipality, Deputy Director Jerker Andersson-Liljestrand says that they follow the recommendations of the Public Health Authority.

But when we are going to interview Eva Thimfors, the social director, she says that she understands that the elderly residents have been wrong.

- It's been completely wrong in our communication, says Eva Thimfors to SVT Nyheter Väst.