"We've always been careful talking about something like this as it's an issue regarding our preparedness," ambulance nurse Emil Skoglund told the TT newswire. "But I feel like the limit has been reached. The people have to know."
The situation in the central Stockholm ambulance service has been strained for a while, with a lack of staff meaning that not all vans can be used.
But on Tuesday night, just one ambulance was serving the whole of central Stockholm.
"This is the worst I've seen it in eight years," Skoglund said. "And the situation at the moment is normal. We're not taking care of a pandemic or catastrophe and it still looks like this."
Aside from being an ambulance nurse, Skoglund is also an elected representative for the Swedish Healthcare Association as well as a skyddsombud, a safety representative at his workplace.
He was not aware as to whether the single ambulance on duty on Tuesday came into any issues, but he heard from colleagues that the situation was very stressful.
"Usually we have at a bare minimum three ambulances on duty in Stockholm city centre, but often more than that," Skoglund said. The Stockholm city area covers Norrmalm, Vasastan, Kungsholmen and nearby areas, with Södermalm covered by ambulance stations further south.
Other ambulance stations from elsewhere in Stockholm county often help to cover issues in the centre.
"But then if an ambulance needs to come in from Lidingö or Solna, that area ends up without one," Skoglund said.
The pressure on the ambulance service is, he said, due to a "perfect storm" of a bad working environment, resignations and issues with recruitment.
"I can see that we have 16 vacant shifts for specialist nurses for ambulances in northern Stockholm next weekend," Skogslund said. He received three texts asking him to hop in and take extra shifts during his interview with the TT newswire. He is on holiday but took an extra shift on Monday.
According to Skogslund, there was no ambulance in northern Stockholm which was available to answer an emergency call to do with a drowning.
"They had to call out in a panic asking if there were any other ambulances in the region who could take it."
The local healthcare region, Region Stockholm, said that help arrived within a couple of minutes and no one was in danger.
During 2024 and 2025, Region Stockholm took back control over the region's ambulance service from the private sector. According to Skoglund, salaries have dropped since then.
"There are a lot of new graduates who apply to us and turn us down because of the low salaries, then get a new job with the region straight away with a better salary," Skoglund said.
Region leadership called to a crisis meeting on Wednesday after Skoglund raised the alarm.
Opposition councillor Kristoffer Tamsons told TT that the situation is a threat to patient safety.
"It's a complete failure that the situation has come to this and unacceptable that the political leadership are hiding instead of taking responsibility for the situation we're seeing," he told the newswire in a written comment.
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