Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MEDICAL

Elderly Swede dies after swallowing his dentures

A 94-year-old man from Lindesberg in central Sweden died after caregivers failed to discover his set of false teeth had been lodged in his throat for several days.

Published: 26 September 2008 08:44 CEST

The man lived in an elderly care facility and hadn’t eaten for a week when he was taken to Lindesberg hospital with a suspected respiratory infection, writes the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper.

By the time the man arrived at the hospital he was unconscious. He was give antibiotics. It was only when hospital personnel began to examine the man’s mouth that they discovered his dentures were stuck in his throat.

The man died the following day.

Bengt Jakobsson, a doctor at the hospital, believes that the fake teeth likely played a role in the man’s death.

The case has now been reported to Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).

HEALTH

Pregnant woman died in overcrowded hospital

A Swedish hospital pressured by a lack of beds and staff coupled with a winter increase in patients has reported itself to the healthcare watchdog after a pregnant woman died in its emergency room.

Published: 16 January 2017 07:46 CET
Pregnant woman died in overcrowded hospital
File photo of a pregnant woman not connected to the story. Photo: Hasse Holmberg/TT

The woman complained of headache and vomiting when she visited Mölndal Hospital in western Sweden in December, reports broadcaster SVT. It was decided to let her undergo a brain scan, but because of a lack of beds in the neurology ward she had to stay in the emergency room overnight.

During the night her condition deteriorated. She was taken to the neurology ward for emergency surgery, but her life could not be saved. The hospital filed a so-called 'Lex Maria' report to the healthcare watchdog, the Health and Social Care Inspectorate, suggesting overcrowding may have been to blame.

“Inadequate level of care, possible shortcomings in the transmission of information and delayed transport could be a contributory factor to the tragic course of events,” SVT, which does not state how far ahead the woman was in her pregnancy, quoted it as saying.

The hospital does not wish to comment during the ongoing investigation, but several staff members have voiced concern over a lack of beds in non-emergency departments at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, of which Mölndal Hospital is part.

“Patients who really need care in the other wards end up staying in the emergency room. The staff then have to try to care for them there, while caring for a continuous stream of new patients,” Karin Frank, the healthcare union representative at Mölndal Hospital, told SVT.

The Local has previously reported on other incidents of overcrowding at Swedish hospitals. In December, three families from Uppland county had to travel to Finland to give birth because there was no room for them and their specific needs in the neonatal unit of Uppsala University Hospital.

Last year a baby died when a heavily pregnant woman was turned away from an overcrowded hospital in the south of the country, while in a high-profile case in 2014, a Swedish man had to help his fiancée give birth to their baby in the back of a taxi because the family was turned away by a midwife, who said there wasn't a hospital bed available for them in all of Stockholm.