Swedish hospital bed crisis kills 100 patients, doctors call for Vision Zero

 

One hundred deaths in Swedish hospitals last year could be linked to a lack of staffed hospital beds or high workload, according to an investigation published in the Swedish hospital doctors' newspaper.

A female patient arrives in a Swedish emergency department with acute abdominal pain. She is initially assessed as a surgical patient, but a CT scan shows nothing abnormal.

Her fever rises, but no beds are available in the hospital’s medical ward. She remained in the emergency room for 13,5 hours before being transferred to the medicine ward, where doctors diagnosed her with sepsis (a blood infection). She is then quickly moved to an intensive care unit, but her life cannot be saved.

This is one example from the 100 deaths in somatic wards in Swedish hospitals in 2023, where the patients succumbed due to a lack of staffed beds, limited resources or high workloads, as the Sjukhusläkaren (the Hospital Physician) revealed. (...)