In December last year, Region Västerbotten went out and appealed to patients to sparingly visit the emergency department at Norrland University Hospital.
The reason was that they noticed an increased search pressure.
Despite the call, the workload has remained heavy and inside the hospital there are approximately 40 overcrowding, says Kent Sandström, deputy head of department at the emergency department in Umeå.
- The Christmas weekend was an extremely heavy weekend.
We had long treatment times for the patients and patient safety was absolutely threatened, he says.
Looking better for Epiphany
Due to staff shortages, the number of care places at Norrland University Hospital has decreased to around 290. This means that patients remain in the emergency department instead of being sent on to a health care department.
- We have enough staff on each shift, but the load becomes too heavy for them, so we would perhaps need even more, but we do what we can to staff up, says Kent Sandström.
Magnus Hedström, who is area manager for Länssjukvård area 1, says that the number of overcrowding at NUS fluctuates from day to day.
- Right now it looks decent, but we have had a very stressful situation.
But it looks a little better ahead of Epiphany, he says.