Heavy savings requirements for care - all surgery is closed in Sollefteå

So far, attempts to deal with the healthcare system's deep financial deficit have been anything but successful.

The forecast for specialist care is minus SEK 363 million for this year.  

Tough action package

Today, those responsible for specialist care therefore presented an action plan that will get the economy in balance by 2022, in two years, and a number of drastic measures are now being presented.

It is also a plan where you send with an unusually grim firebrand: do not bite this medicine, it may require much more drastic changes in the business in the future.

All surgery in Sollefteå will be closed

The plan that Lena Carlsson, head of administration for specialist care, wants to implement, includes, among other things, that

surgical operations in Sollefteå be closed down - and moved to Sundsvall.

One of the reasons given is that the department in Sollefteå is completely dependent on hired staff and the assessment is that it is not possible to recruit staff there.

In addition, cardiology in Sollefteå will be abolished when 10 care places are removed.

Övik gets rid of orthopedics

For the hospital in Örnsköldsvik, the action plan means that the surgical operations in orthopedics will be closed down and 25 care places will be closed down.

That business will instead be moved to Sollefteå.

Orthopedics in Sollefteå is considered to be underused today.

24 care places in geriatrics will disappear, six places in Sollefteå and 18 in Sundsvall, and for psychiatry, the current 13 care places will be replaced with a mobile unit.

The catastrophic development of recent years in terms of temporary staff must be broken, according to the plan.

In 2019, the region was at the top in the country when it comes to relay costs.

The hope is that it will be possible to cut around SEK 100 million in costs, but at the same time it requires that the staff become more efficient than today and reduce the number of staff, ie the number of care staff per care intervention.

Underdimensioned primary care is one of the reasons

In addition, it is stated in the plan that much of the major problems in care are due to the structure itself with an undersized primary care and an overly expensive hospital care.

This imbalance was one of the most important issues that the S + M + L coalition wanted to change when it took over after the 2018 election - but which it did not succeed in implementing.

192 million - but there will be more

In total, the current action plan includes measures that will cut costs by SEK 192 million - as a first step.

To meet the target for 2022, a balanced economy, further cuts are needed.

More tough news will thus come.

Now the content of the new action plan will be handled by the politicians in the region, and there is much to suggest that this autumn's first regional council on 23 September will be a stormy event.

You can read the entire proposal here.