Review: They have coped best with the IVA chaos - have the lowest mortality rate in the country

The review of covid-IVA mortality shows large differences between the country's regions.

In the Jönköping County Region, 11.1 per cent of the admitted patients died until 31 December 2021. On Gotland, Skåne and Västernorrland, on the other hand, more than 30 per cent died of covid-IVA.

This is the highest proportion in the country, shows SVT's review of the Swedish intensive care register.

There are several ways to measure survival but the result will be about the same no matter how you measure (see fact box).

Several doctors tell Assignment Review that it is not possible to draw any conclusions from the differences in survival. 

Peter Nordlund, member of the board of the Swedish Intensive Care Registry and IVA doctor in Jönköping, thinks that the differences are serious. 

- This suggests that there is something that differs in care between the regions.

"You really have to think"

He believes that the regions and healthcare must act.

- You really need to think about what kind of care you offer in each individual region.

And maybe you should be a little more in agreement on how to try to run the care, says Peter Nordlund.

The review of the Swedish intensive care register shows that the treatment of covid patients differs between the regions.

Among other things, patients are put on a respirator at different speeds.

Some run other respiratory aids to a greater extent.

Anders Rehn, operations manager for intensive and perioperative care at Skåne University Hospital, believes that the statistics are affected by the fact that in some intensive care units in Skåne only the very sickest are admitted.

- The others we have had in a form of advanced intermediate care which is the care step before intensive care.

So I mean that there are no comparable groups when we compare our different intensive care units, he says.

But SVT's review shows no clear connection between the size of the intermediate care and the mortality rate on IVA in the regions.

Västernorrland, for example, has no intermediate care at all but the same high mortality rate as Skåne.

The doctor: "I had been completely desperate"

In the Jönköping County Region, the IVA doctor Fredrik Hammarskjöld has been responsible for the guidelines for covid-IVA care.

He is grateful that Jönköping is not at the bottom of the survival statistics.

- I had been completely desperate.

I had done my very, very, very extreme to try to understand why it had become so, he says.