Nurse acquitted of ambulance call death

a mistake is when u put a rip in a sweater.

THIS is denying a citizen their right to an ambulance.......... period.

the nurse made a very very very stupid decision here and should be held accountable.

if someone asks for an ambulance it should be sent, RIGHT AWAY.

if its a prank call then it can be dealt with accordingly.

better safe than sorry.

stupid emil.

I totally agree. Christ, they're soft in Sweden!!

"... he had previously been criticized for not listening enough to callers."

No accountability. As usual.

The difficult question here is simply this: Where does malpractice end and criminal neglect begin?

Dr. Murray criminally administered propofol to Michael Jackson in exchange for obscene amounts of money. There was no recognized medical purpose for the medication and it was administered in a way that was outside of the standard of practice. Pretty much everyone agrees that his actions went well beyond "poor judgement" and amounted to criminal negligence.

Our hapless nurse in this case exercised extremely poor judgement, but is there any evidence of criminal neglect or intent to harm? In my opinion this case is malpractice(civil) and not criminal.

@liquidmonkey

The Swedish emergency system is not designed to send an ambulance in response to every call. A nurse triages the calls and makes a determination as to medical necessity. Perhaps this is another example of socialized medicine rationing care in order to save money. In the USA we send an ambulance without question for everything from gunshot wounds to hemorrhoids. And, for better or worse, health care in the USA is the most expensive in the world.

One final thought. Does anyone know why Emil's spleen ruptured? It is very unusual for a spleen to spontaneously rupture. It can happen in cases where the spleen is massively enlarged but is very rare. More often the spleen ruptures after a traumatic injury. Does anyone know what Emil reported to the nurse? Did he injure himself or was this one of those rare events?

this seems to me to be a prosecutor error - the prosecution could have put a wider range of charges before the court - manslaughter was always going to be tough to prove

however negligence and occupational neglience (tjänstefel) would have given the court a chance to convict

@krrodman

If I remember correctly the emergency service gets so many false calls that they need to have a nurse filtering them. This case reminds me of the boy who cried wolf.

As for his spleen it ruptured because of a major infection and it resulted in respiration problems which is why Emil called.

This is the line of work in which you are NOT allowed to make mistakes. As one of the very likely outcomes is the death of a person.

As it's also a repeated case which now resulted in death, I can not other then hope this person gets life in jail without the opportunity for parole.

Most importantly as a warning to other people who held other people's lives in their hands during their day jobs. Mistakes are not an option.

I recognize that the US and Sweden have different standards, but here is the part I do not understand:

"had lost consciousness several times while he spoke with the nurse on the phone. "

Is losing conciousness while calling for help not considered a medical emergency in Sweden?

@abe L

As a practicing physician for 30 years, I am intrigued by your claim that medical professionals are "NOT" allowed to make a mistake. If life were only so simple. The first thing we need to do is to define what a mistake is. Sounds simple, but it not so simple. We can all agree that it is an horrific mistake to cut off the wrong leg. That one is easy. What about this? Is it a "mistake" by your standards to operate on a patient with abdominal pain secondary to presumed appendicitis only to find out that the appendix was normal and the patient had pain secondary to a viral condition called mesenteric adenitis? What if I were to tell you that there is no test that can distinguish with 100% certainty between appendicitis and mesenteric adenitis? A surgeon understands that because of diagnostic uncertainty there must be "unnecessary" surgery. Is that the kind of "mistake" that you are talking about? And to take it one step further, while it is extremely rare, healthy patients die under anesthesia. So we know, statistically speaking, that at some point in time a patient will die during "unnecessary" surgery. What do you propose to do to the health care professionals involved? Put them in jail for life because "mistakes are not an option"?

Fortunately, for many of the posters above, being an idiot is not a crime in Sweden. Oh to be one of them, not a mistake made between them. Perfection personified!

The criminal courts are for prosecuting criminals, not persecuting negligent nurses.

Some people here want to see the entire Swedish medical profession banged up. Every doctor and nurse ever have messed something up.

Krrodman, thanks for bringing the voice of reason and experience to these medical discussions. I would be curious to know what your opinion(s) are on:

1. Socialized medicine

and

2. What can be done to "fix" the high costs of medical care in the US?

Ooooopsie....

Two wrongs do NOT make a right...

A life was lost and an incompetent nurse is blame free. Oopsie.

A court agrees that it was not that bad, go do it again i guess. Oppsie.

Not good signals being sent.

Privatized, gone to s h i t and no-one is responsible whatever happens. Sounds exactly like the entire health service. Way to go M!

"........ this being a prerequisite to convict the nurse who faced charges of manslaughter."..

As I understood this case as reported much earlier in the year, the deceased young man had received, on numerous occasions, medical intervention that had been inconclusive as to the cause of his problem.

Ergo, the pre-requisite condition to convict already had existed for some time. The failure of one or more or many doctors to agree a diagnosis does not release any person from the obligation to render emergency assistance.

The man may well have died even if an ambulance had been dispatched, in which case one would reasonably presume that those doctors/specialists who had seen this young man over a period of time will now themselves be charged with involuntary manslaughter!

There really is no point in consulting a qualified professional who cannot make a diagnosis until after your dead! Nor is there any point in employing emergency response personnel who cannot render assistance because you are still alive, but may be dead before you get to hospital!

This family would be well advised to set up a webpage and invite donations towards legal costs from the public. Then, since people will vote with their money, lawmakers may properly address this issue.

This sort of stuff is why i fckn hate living in this fckned up country they people are just un fckn believable.

@Svensksmith

You asked me about socialized medicine, and the high cost of health care in the USA. Here I go: There are 2 core problems in dealing with the health care crisis. First, health care is a unique problem, especially for capitalists. In modern capitalist countries we accept that a rich person may be able to drive a Rolls Royce, while a poor person may have to drive an old clunker. While the cars may be quite different, in the end both drivers will be able to get to their destination. How do we apply these capitalist principles to health care when the cost of treating an illness like appendicitis is the same for both rich and poor? The second problem, and this applies to every country in the world, is that there is not enough money to give every citizen unlimited, timely, high quality health care. Every country rations health care in one way or another. Sweden is a perfect example. I assume you are familiar with 0-7-90-90. The goal of the Swedish healthcare system is to provide specialist care within 187 days of the identification of a problem. That would be 187 days to get a bad gallbadder removed. That would be 187 days to get a knee arthroscopy for a torn meniscus. Are you kidding me? In my opinion it is outrageous to ask a patient to wait that long for care. That said, slowing down care is the most common form of rationing. Or put differently, how many more doctors, nurses and hospital beds would be needed in Sweden if the goal were to get surgery done with 30 days instead of 187 days? And how much would that cost the system?

The USA rations differently. We have extraordinary care for the well insured. It is unlimited and timely, but very very expensive. If I were to go to the hospital today with an acute gallbadder attack, my gallbladder would be removed within 48 hours, not 187 days. Knee pain??? MRI within 1 week. Surgery within 2 weeks. Perfect, right??? Well, perfect for me because I am well insured. I get far superior care to the average Swede. BUT, not so perfect for the 30 million people without insurance and millions more with lower quality insurance. So, we spend a fortune on health care to give many people great care, but fail miserably on millions of other people. Obamacare tries to address these issues, but the unintended negative consequences are real. The plan is to insure an additional 30 million people while spending less overall on health care. And, the promise is not to reduce care to those that currently have the best care in the world. You and I both know the task is impossible. Inevitably, care will have to be rationed significantly in order to provide universal insurance.