While the authorities see a need to increase access to healthcare, several regions are working in the opposite direction, she believes. Sollefteå, Arvika, Köping, and Ljungby are examples of smaller emergency hospitals that are now at risk of being closed down.
According to Karlsson, the closures are not driven by geographical distribution or local community conditions, but by "21 individual regions' political and bureaucratic agendas".
Sweden has long been at the bottom when it comes to the number of hospital beds within the OECD, something that both the National Board of Health and Welfare and the Health and Social Care Inspectorate have highlighted. According to Karlsson, however, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) has long tried to downplay and tone down the problems.
"As long as the regions are responsible for healthcare, clear frameworks are needed at the national level, for example, regarding access to hospital beds and how far it should be at most to emergency care from urban areas in Sweden, for example, a maximum of ten miles."
The hospital doctors are calling for a cross-party agreement that establishes that the state should take over responsibility for the placement, orientation, and dimensioning of emergency hospitals to meet citizens' needs.
