Whistleblowers in healthcare: "It's really bad now!"
Translated from this link:
To find out how bad things are, we have to look behind the scenes. Here follows a whistleblower's story from care and social care — the truth about the situation is worse than many dared to believe.
Most of us know how it is. If we follow the debate, read the news and take a few minutes to look around our time, it is clear that we have problems in society. Those responsible for these problems call them "challenges", which in itself shows how little they really care. Because the crises that our society is in the middle of must not be underestimated. In many cases, it is about life and death.
However, we don't know how bad it is. We guess, we put together puzzles and we imagine. It has almost become casual and in many cases we shrug our shoulders and state that it is "really bad" - without understanding how "really bad" it is. If you are healthy, have money to get by and a social context, you can have a good time. It's when you get sick, when your personal finances go haywire, you become lonely or in other ways suffer badly that "really bad" makes itself felt.
This is why whistleblowers are so important; people who work behind the scenes and can tell us what it's really like there. They give us the stories from the reality that we sense, but don't know. They are hated by the authorities, and should be highly valued by the people.
Here follows a story from one of these whistleblowers. From a person who talks about how "really bad" it actually is. Do you also want to share stories that show what it really looks like? Do not hesitate to contact us : We give the Swedes a voice. Do you want to be part of building a Swedish future with us? Become a member today!
Free Sweden's board
"Care is collapsing"
- a desperate cry from the inside
Early Morning. The first and most important task is before me. I have to find new staff for my client who needs personal assistance. He is severely brain damaged and has very little language left - basically just "yes" and "no". I look among those who have applied for jobs, about 50 applications have come in. Only three of them are from someone with a Swedish-sounding name, the rest are from the Middle East or Somalia.
Barely pass the interview
The applications vary somewhat, from very bad to just…bad. Some have education and have become support assistants or assistant nurses via a municipal initiative and now they are looking for a job with me. Most have no suitable background at all. The fact that they have studied a training program in Sweden is in no way a guarantee that they can make themselves understood or talk to me or their colleagues.
Most people can barely get through an interview, even if they have read an entire high school curriculum. The smallest question that is a little complicated and the conversation will be interrupted. When you study an education - for example to become a nurse - and do it with "language support", you get so much help with Swedish that you get through the education even if you can barely construct a single sentence correctly.
Education worth nothing
The courses are aimed at those who come from outside Europe and are so-called "language-impaired". But support them so much throughout the education so that they pass it, you offer special educational help, you herd them through week by week, point by point. Sometimes they may be given an extra course in "professional Swedish".
Out come newly graduated nurses and support assistants who can barely carry on a conversation - let alone take care of my patients. They can't come along to doctor's appointments, because they don't understand what the doctor is saying. They do not understand the simplest instructions, nor can they implement new aids or understand new instructions about whether a medicine should be crushed or not. They can hardly document what is legislated and an obligation.
Where are the Swedes who want to work?
I sit and look at applications, flipping between Mohammed and Fatima. They arrived in Sweden in 2015, 2017. Some have been here a little longer and then the applications may be slightly better. Some have pasted a picture in the application with a smiling, veiled face. I pick out a girl who seems to have put a bit more effort into her resume and call her up.
"Hello" someone answers - they never answer with their name so there is always confusion before I can make sure I'm talking to the right person and often the tone is almost suspicious. I introduce myself with my name and where I'm calling from and what I want: "You had applied for a job with us here and I wonder if you want to come to a job interview?"
I sound happy and accommodating, here is to be recruited so that my user gets the input to which he is legally entitled, staffing must be resolved and quickly. We agree on a time and I hang up and look on dejectedly.
The supply of personnel has become more difficult every year. When I started as manager 15 years ago, you could hire lively, happy, Swedish girls and boys who wanted to work in healthcare. Where they are now I have no idea. I started in elderly care myself when I was 19 years old. I played CDs with Evert Taube, held dementia sufferers and dished out mashed potatoes. I don't know what the young girls and boys are doing now, but at least I can't get them, my ads don't attract them.
Tribal conflict?
My mobile phone rings and it is one of my employees who, with an aggressive tone of voice, upset tells me that she has been violated by a colleague. Both are from Africa and they often disagree. I strongly suspect that they are from different tribes and that it spills over into poor cooperation and endless conflicts. This time they have started arguing loudly in front of a user who is 65 years old and just wants peace and quiet.
The staff are unfit to be there, I know, but I have no one else to offer so I'll take what's offered. I try to listen and follow along and understand what has happened - who has offended whom and why. The conversation waves back and forth, almost impossible to understand even for me who is now quite trained in trying to follow the internal conflicts, the dramatic tone and the flawed logic of what is being said. I end with something encouraging about the fact that they must try to talk to each other like adults and that it is part of the employment contract to cooperate with everyone who works at work, even the colleagues with whom you may not enjoy it so well. In a serious voice, I seriously emphasize - so that the person will really understand - that this will not be seen through the fingers with.
Conflicts must never spill over to our users, but it happens like this, time and time again. The disciplinary measures I have to take are countless. A minute after I hang up, the other person calls and wants to tell their side of the story. In clumsy Swedish, it is told about some violation and misunderstanding, and I can feel the patience running out. It's salary driving and I have so much else to do. It's one violation after another, "she's after my job" says person number two, which seems to be impossible because they are both incredibly permanent employees. Maybe they disagree and want each other's schedules? It is impossible to know.
Uncomprehending before laws and regulations
When I have certified the salaries, the next person calls and states that she has not received the schedule she wants, she does not understand why the schedule looks the way it does, even though I have explained it in meeting after meeting. It is impossible to reach out and get them to understand how the scheduling works, with different time rules and agreements that must be followed in order not to violate the Working Hours Act. Sometimes I think we should have an interpreter at our meetings, but surely someone would have been offended by that, and perhaps contacted Kommunal.
The difficult dilemma is that we have information from above from the municipality every month, we have to collect statistics via questionnaires my staff cannot fill in because they do not understand the questions. A concept such as "health factors at work" becomes impossible to reason about with someone who barely understands basic Swedish. They rarely contribute anything to the meetings but sit passively, it is unclear if they listen at all.
The development talks I'm forced to have are like a joke. I will give feedback on the past year and we will look ahead, I will assess the employees' contribution and plan areas for development. I sit and look at my list of staff, about three out of fifteen are Swedes. My Swedish staff works well. They can be a bit supportive if I fail in my leadership and maybe make a decision without discussing it with them, then they can get in touch and maybe I have to back down or explain why I made the decision I made. It flows on and is rarely a problem with them. We have common values and we can talk about Midsummer or how the weather was over Easter. I can take an interest in their grandchildren or their yoga class.
I have nothing in common with my foreign colleagues. They don't understand what I'm saying and I don't understand them. Even less do they understand the rules, procedures and laws by which we must work. Arriving on time is something that seems to be a rather fluid concept that is rarely respected, I get to talk to them or give them disciplinary measures when they have broken up and not arrived on time. The frustration becomes great for the person who is ordered to stay because the colleague cannot arrive on time. Prioritizing what to do is also difficult. I can give a clear directive about what needs to be done first and foremost during the workday, but when I call six hours later, it hasn't been done. There is no respect for what I say, but is often followed by direct insults about how good I am as a manager.
Healthcare is collapsing
My work continues and it is characterized by trying to talk to people whom I can hardly reach because they do not understand what I say, much less do they understand the non-verbal aspects of communication. Often it feels like they don't even want the job they have. And in our nursing homes there are lots of immigrant women who have been channeled through nurse training. Some may want to do a good job, but they are hardly suited to take care of our elderly people.
How many have not heard an elderly relative remember a song from their youth, even though they can't remember what they had for breakfast? Some can remember things from the catechism or ramble long verses. One of the last things a person with dementia loses is language, everyone who works in healthcare knows that, yet thousands of immigrants are put through education systems where they have to take care of Swedes they don't understand.
Care is collapsing and I'm trying to keep my head above water, in a desperate desire to do good for the disabled and elderly. Inside spreads an abysmal roar of anger and frustration, rooted in a sense of duty to do a good job for my most fragile protégés.
It is almost impossible.
Åsa J.