Heart attack victim dies after ambulance denied
Published: 14 Mar 12 08:23 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/39656/20120314/
A 75-year-old Stockholm man suffering from a heart attack was forced to call three times and wait 13 hours before emergency services operator SOS Alarm finally sent an ambulance. He died in hospital the following day.
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Several hours later, the man called again, telling the operator he felt extremely weak and was still having trouble breathing.
The man was told to lie down and rest.
A third call was placed to SOS Alarm a few hours later by the man’s sister, who said her brother had vomited and could barely move.
Finally, 13 hours after the man’s first call, an ambulance was sent to the man’s home and he was taken to hospital.
He was diagnosed having a heart attack and died less than a day later.
The incident, which took place last year, was reported to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).
Upon reviewing the case, the agency last week issued its findings, criticizing the actions of the nurses who took the initial calls for not focusing on the man’s symptoms and failing to interview him correctly.
However, the health board refrained from requiring that SOS Alarm implement any specific changes as the agency is currently conducting a national review of the emergency services operator.
Speaking with the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper, SOS Alarm spokesperson Anders Klarström said the company takes the incident “very seriously”.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure everything goes right and we’ve added more resources to our patient safety unit in order to work with these sort of quality issues,” he told the paper.
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Quality issues?
The man died.
Get rid of these chair warmers and put front-line paramedics on the phones.
Get rid of the for-profit model in emergency response - if there is a problem with too few resources, expose it and bring it out into the open, don't hide it behind a company and let them take the heat.
This is exactly the kind of service our high taxes are supposed to pay for - Probably the first priority for taxes at any level.
A real story would be "Today an Ambulance was actually sent to a sick person who called the emergency services"
@gpafledthis - you are an idiot.
The same thing happens over and over again with SOS. Socialstyrelsen is still reviewing the issue? What they are doing is seeking instruction from the appropriate Moderate ministers as to how to massage this problem to determine that the for profit model works and to prevent implementing any rules that would require SOS, or any other for profit operator, to actually have to spend money on patient care. How many people have to die before they recognize that the for profit system doesn't work in this context? An ill-qualified telephone operator should not be diagnosing ill and injured patients over the phone. The operator should be dispatching an ambulance so that qualified paramedics and/or an ER doctor can see the patient.
Oh! Good idea!
When in need of an ambulance call to report a house fire instead...
Hmm, wait, that won't work, didn't I see a story about SOS refusing to dispatch the fire department because kids called in the alarm...
I have been an emergency dispatcher in Canada and any one of these incidents would have seen me fired and possibly in jail if I had done them.
Then again, I worked for the fire department, not a for-profit company. I actually understood that it is ALWAYS better to err on the side of caution when dealing with people's lives.
I didn't think I'd ever hear myself saying this but I wish the US style Malpractice or negligence threat was here, or at least some form of accountability. Here is Sweden this will get filed and brought up at this person's 'bonus' review, and maybe they'll get a few less SEK for this incident.
And encourage anyone to take every other a black job or not to pay taxes if they are not used in a way it could help our system function... what bout that!?
There have been a few of these and very recently.
In answer to Rap43 Cheers....there are no bonuses in Sweden.
What a bunch of retards ....
Maybe the government could take over if they had more money for real emergencies and services rather than allow all the leeches to stay in school for 7 or 8 years just to get their useless undergraduate degrees when they will all make around the same amount of money in socialist Sweden.
Idiots.
Heads should roll!
Why don't you just comment on something without the "you are an idiot" remark?
Just wondering.
You're wrong. The faster you get care in a heart attack the better your chances of survival and minimizing the damage to the heart.
To those trying to make this a government does it better issue: BS. It's a competence issue and government employess can be and often are incompetent. There are stories here ion the US by negligence of 911 operators who are government employees.One difference. The private companies will be more likely to fire negligent employees.The contracts negotiated by public sector unions and government officials pandering to them to get their votes have made it difficult to fire employees even when they are grossly negligent.
The systems are a throw-back from a time before privatization, when services were rendered with little thought to money-savings. In a time where an ambulance was sent every time without cost considerations, a telephone operator with no medical training made sense. Privatization occured, profit-motive in place, and a back-up system of accountablity (at a punitive level to ensure compliance) was not put in place.
Privatization only works for the public good IF it is NOT PROFITABLE to let people become disabled or die. The consequence needs to be comensurate with the loss. A legal remedy needs to be enacted.
The reason, in the USA, that when you call your HMO's nurse line, and you have chest pains, that they immediately authorize a trip to the emergency room (despite the high cost to the insurance company) is that the consequence for a misdiagnois over the phone is TOO costly, Sure, it may be your ulcer acting up. However, if you die, or get disabled, the private medical system will pay dearly for that mistake. SO, they put procedures in place to avoid making that mistake. (This includes a lot of unnecessary tests, but that is a debate for another day.)
If someone calls the police, ambulance, firefighter just make it a requirement that the proper service is sent out to investigate.
The people answering the phones at SOS shouldn't be in charge of determining whether or not help is actually needed, they've already proven that they're incapable of this. They should ONLY be in charge of contacting the correct people and making sure they're dispatched and at the scene of the emergency as quickly as possible.
If it's found that someone is making a prank call or misusing the system give them a huge fine.
It's infinitely better that someone is sent out for nothing than allowing innocent people to continue to die.
ambulance or not.Not some stupid woman asking stupid questions to determin if it is serious or not.
Isnt it exactly the same with Vårdcentral,you must make out your alot sicker than what you really are,and be firm and say ,I want a time today or I will report you,that gets me a time that day.If you are not standing your ground ,like my swedish wife,then you get walked over and they say,No Doctor times untill 2-3 weeks.
Everything that is wrong in this country needs Protests on the streets,and I know most English people would do this over here,but we always think whats the point,You will never get the backing from the Swedes.They are conditioned to do as there told and say nothing.
I know how big the number of his house looks like, because right next to it, is the number to my house.