The game behind the famous field hospital: "Should never have been built"

During a few intense weeks at the beginning of the corona pandemic, the temporary hospital was built in the Stockholm Fair in Älvsjö.

The Crown Princess couple, ministers and the media were invited to a tour of the prestigious project.

Here the idea was that 550 covid patients could be cared for.

When SVT visited in early April last year, it was announced that the first patients would arrive any day. 

But then something happened - and the hospital was never used until it was closed in June.

- If you are to be hindsight, it would never have been built, because you could have saved money.

But when we were in the middle of it, they wanted to do something to be prepared if the absolute worst thing would happen, says Björn Zoëga, hospital director at Karolinska University Hospital.

The game behind

SVT has spoken to several people with insight into the project, who describe that there was a power struggle behind the scenes.

The splits are confirmed in a new report from the Swedish National Defense College.

On one side were the Stockholm Special Health Management (RSSL) region and on the other side the emergency hospitals, led by Karolinska University Hospital, KS.

- It was a very intense period and it is not surprising that there will be some squeaks, says Johan Bratt, acting director of health and medical care in the Stockholm region, who has been with RSSL since the start of the pandemic.

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel were shown around the Stockholm Fair at the end of March.

Among others by Björn Eriksson, then director of health and medical care in the Stockholm region.

Photo: TT

The decision on the project was made on March 22 last year and the region decided that Karolinska would staff and manage the care at the temporary hospital.

But there were different opinions about what was really best: to increase the capacity of the regular hospitals or invest in the temporary in Älvsjö.

"A game of power"

The Swedish National Defense College writes in its report that none of the intended care providers thought that the region's project was a good idea and that no one wanted to let go of their own staff because it was considered that it was needed in their own operations.

"It became a power game about the scarce human resources," the report states.

- The best thing was to take care of the patients in the hospitals.

These were pressured times and we had heated discussions.

I would not say that we disagreed but we had different opinions, says Björn Zoëga.

The conflict culminated and the hospital director Björn Zoëga made the decision to call home his staff from the project, shows internal emails that SVT has received.

Never used

A few days later, at the turn of the month in March and April, Stockholm County's healthcare area (SLSO) was appointed as the new care provider for the temporary hospital.

When Älvsjö Hospital was closed down in June, no patient had been cared for there.

The bill for the project ended at just over SEK 150 million according to information from the Stockholm region.

Do you think it was the right decision to build the hospital?

- I think it was a completely reasonable assessment. Had we ended up in the same situation tomorrow, we would probably have made the same assessment, says Johan Bratt, acting director of health and medical care.