The regions in the summer: The care staff will have their holiday

During the spring, the number of admissions to IVA (intensive care unit) has been at the highest levels since the first wave in the spring of 2020. In the regions, there is great uncertainty about what burden to expect.

Some take height for a high load.

Others hope that the vaccination will reduce the pressure.

- We think it will be easier until the summer, but we think we need more IVA places than last summer.

Our input is that we can not really go down to normal staffing at iva, now we have doubled capacity, says Ann Söderström, health and medical care director at the Västra Götaland region.

Gonna have a vacation

Almost all regions surveyed state that they plan to give healthcare staff a holiday as usual - that is, four weeks of continuous leave.

But there are exceptions.

In the Västerbotten Region, some groups do not receive more than three weeks' holiday.

In Dalarna, Kalmar and Halland, among others, certain staff are offered to move their holiday for a fee.

Not all regions have granted leave for staff either - it is instead a goal.

Uncertain in several regions

One of the regions hardest hit by the third wave of coronary heart disease is Uppsala.

It is unclear whether the staff in, for example, the intensive care units will have a holiday as usual.

"It will still be some time before we will be able to give information, but the summer looks very difficult," writes Jakob Larsson, press secretary at the Uppsala Region.

Among healthcare staff in Uppsala, there is great concern ahead of the summer, says Sofia Lindström, who is an IVA nurse and chairman of the Healthcare Association in the region.

- I see that we need our four weeks of continuous leave.

The problem is that we are only entitled to it during June-August.

If we do not get the statutory holiday in the summer, there is nothing to say that we get time off at another time during the year.

That is why we are so persistent in maintaining it, she says.

Even in Västernorrland, the situation is extremely strained and great security prevails.

The region's health and medical care director Kurt Pettersson describes the staff situation this summer as "very tight".

- We work with all possible means to be able to offer four weeks.

We hope that we will be able to solve it, we reduce all the load we can, says Kurt Pettersson.