The historic investment in care for the elderly will not go away
After the pandemic, there was a consensus among all parties to invest in care for the elderly. The then Social Democrat government launched a historic initiative that was received positively. Now the elderly care offensive is canceled and there will be no reform. It is a betrayal, writes the Social Democrats.
DEBATE. The SD government lets its voters down in yet another area and puts an end to a historic investment in care for the elderly. The high tone before the election has been replaced by passivity and dismantling. After the pandemic, there was for a period something as unusual as consensus among all political parties on the importance of investing in Swedish care for the elderly. The then Swedish government then launched a historic investment in care for the elderly, which was received positively. Some parties even expressed a certain impatience as they felt that the offensive was not ambitious enough.
The social democratic government’s elderly care offensive was based on three pillars: to strengthen the role and status of assistant nurses, to increase elderly care’s access to doctors and nurses, and to strengthen current legislation and governance. In concrete terms, it meant historically large government financial support for elderly care. Both in general but especially for education within the so-called Elderly Care Lift. In addition, the professional title assistant nurse was protected by law, while a new system was introduced with fixed care contact for all elderly people with home care. All staff were also finally entitled to free work clothes.
The next step, which we wanted to take during this mandate, was a new aged care legislation. In light of the pandemic, it became clear that today’s governance and legislation was not sufficient to protect Sweden’s elderly. We therefore also appointed a government inquiry that presented its proposals in the spring of 2022. These proposals were good and well-developed and can be briefly summarized as a more robust and clear set of regulations with significantly tightened and clarified chains of responsibility for the healthcare provided in elderly care. The proposals entailed clearer regulation of both private and public providers and finally put the assistant nurse at the center as the most important professional group in elderly care.
Since the change of government last year, we have asked the new government when they intend to implement these proposals. Last week we finally got the answer from the government. The social democratic elderly care offensive is canceled and there will be no reform. There will be no elderly care law and the questions about medical competence have been buried in a new investigation into municipal doctors. The government therefore does as usual: postpones important decisions and hopes that the issue falls into obscurity. After pressure from us social democrats and both the municipal union and municipal Sweden, the education investment Elderly care lift will remain, but according to the budget bill, the other major financial investments will be scaled back in the coming years.
When you look back at the political debate after the pandemic, this cannot be described as anything other than a betrayal of elderly care and elderly care staff. The governing parties and the Sweden Democrats fail yet another promise and it is clear that the necessary increase in quality and ambition will not be achieved with this government. Lena Hallengren, group leader in the Riksdag (S) Fredrik Lundh Collection, vice chairman social affairs committee (S) Mikael Dahlqvist, member of the social committee (S)