Advertisement

Cancer patient 'sent home to die' gets last-minute operation

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
Cancer patient 'sent home to die' gets last-minute operation
University Hospital of Umeå. Photo: Erik Svensson/TT

A Swedish cancer patient who was "sent home to die" has been granted a last-minute operation after her case was covered by local and national media.

Advertisement

On Tuesday, the University Hospital of Umeå told 72-year-old Solbritt Björkstrand that her original operation for pancreatic cancer had been cancelled just a day before it was due to take place. The reason given by a doctor was an indefinite lack of space at the hospital.

“We asked if they were sending mum home to die, and we got the answer ‘yes, unfortunately’,” Björkstrand’s daughter Annelie Hålén told SVT Västernorrland.

But after grabbing headlines in Swedish media, the hospital called Björkstrand on Wednesday to say that there had been a change of plan and the operation could be carried out next week.

“They called a couple of hours ago and now all of a sudden she will be taken in next Tuesday and operated on Wednesday,” Hålén explained.

According to the hospital’s director of operations Malin Sund, a lack of space means that some planned surgeries must be dropped, with Björkstrand’s case not the only instance of a cancelled operation.

“The beds are completely occupied by emergency patients,” Sund told local newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning.

Overcrowding at Swedish hospitals has been a contentious issue for a number of years. In July 2016 a woman lost her unborn child after she was sent home by a clinic in southern Sweden due to a lack of space.

In 2014 meanwhile a Swedish man had to help his fiancée give birth in the back of a taxi after they were turned away by a midwife who said there were no beds available for them in all of Stockholm.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also