Dissatisfied patients are furious online - now the police are investigating whether the surgeon has been subjected to libel

It is about the successful beauty clinic Klinik34 in Gothenburg, which has received many appreciative testimonials online - but also a number of critical reviews from dissatisfied patients.

And now a police investigation is underway into suspected defamation, ie the surgeon who runs the clinic must have been subjected to defamation.

The investigation is led by chamber prosecutor Johanna Rejdemo Storbjörk, who informs SVT that the preliminary investigation has been going on for over a month and that they have begun collecting material.

Otherwise, she does not want to tell any details about the work.

"Found each other via social media"

The surgeon does not want to be interviewed with reference to patient confidentiality, but according to a letter he sent to IVO, a police report was made in January.

The background must have been the "many complaints and outbursts" which, according to the surgeon, were not due to incorrect treatment, complications or dissatisfaction - "Unfortunately, we experience blackmail of patients who have found each other via social media".

According to the clinic, two complaining patients have demanded compensation of one million and SEK 250,000 respectively and "threatened mass media littering if we do not pay".

Prosecutor Johanna Rejdemo Storbjörk states, however, that the current preliminary investigation is primarily aimed at a possible libel, not extortion.

Suspected "personling schism"

A number of patients have thus reported Klinik34 to the Swedish Health and Care Inspectorate, and IVO has also previously criticized the clinic.

Since 2018, IVO examines the founder's professional practice.

In both that case and others, the surgeon has fought back strongly against what he described as unfounded criticism.

In a response to an IVO report in 2018, he wrote that he suspected "an underlying personal schism from the complainant towards private healthcare or me and Klinik34".

When IVO's medical council in the ongoing investigation criticizes the clinic's handling of anesthesia, he rejects the accusations both with his own letter, and with an opinion in which four anesthesiologists express support for his opinion. The four signatories have all repeatedly worked with the surgeon at Klinik34.