Man dies after ambulance call went unanswered
Published: 1 Feb 12 08:51 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/38842/20120201/
A woman whose boyfriend died after she was unable to get through to Swedish emergency response service SOS Alarm has reported the matter to health authorities.
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She immediately called 112, the Swedish emergency number, but was unable to get an operator on the line.
“I tried repeatedly to call SOS via 112, but without success. No answer!”, the woman wrote in her complaint to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).
“To not be able to reach SOS Alarm is totally unacceptable!”
According to the woman, she placed several calls using both a mobile phone and a land line.
She had even called a friend and begged her to call as well.
But neither the woman nor her friend were able to get emergency services on the line.
“According to their contract with the state, it's not supposed to take longer than eight seconds to get an answer from SOS Alarm,” the woman wrote.
In her complaint, the woman explained that “a while later” she received a call from emergency services and that an ambulance eventually arrived at their home.
But it was too late to save her boyfriend's life.
The woman claimed that the fact calls were place from both a land line and a mobile phone ruled out the possibility that there was something wrong with the telephone connection.
Nor should the fact that it was a holiday have made any difference, according to the woman.
“New Year's night or not, it shouldn't make any difference when every second is critical,” she wrote.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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SOS Alarm is 100% owned and managed by the state health authorities that emply its services. It is effectively a state run service already.
People need to be held accountable for their actions, including being held responsible for a death if your job is to answer the emergency call. The person that was supposed to have answered the call needs to be both fired and pursued for any claims from the victim for financial compensation.
However, as this is not a first occasion they should actually fire the entire upper management and get people in there that can handle the responsibility of saving lives.
The problem in Sweden is that people just point fingers and take no responsibility.
Scepticion is right as well.
It being private or state run doesn't / wouldn't make one bit of difference. You get sh#t service at privately owned businesses as well as at government places here. It's peoples' attitudes that need to change much more than the system.
Until Swedes start caring more about doing a good job while at work (being competent, getting things done in a timely manner and taking care of customers / patients etc.) than taking fika breaks, texting and chatting on the phone and acting like they're doing people a favor by being there working, nothing will change.
Swedes are taught from day one however, to take whatever is given to them and accept it without complaint and that "lagom" is best and wanting or expecting more than that makes you a bad person.
Until that attitude changes, nothing else will.
We don't know if SOS was swamped with calls, if there was faulty equipment, or if someone was just taking a long coffee break.
More info, The Local!