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. (...)