North Bothnia Wants to Buy Surgery Services in Europe to Reduce Queues

The North Bothnia region in Northern Sweden has so long health queues that the regional authorities currently consider buying operation services even abroad to reduce waiting time, according to SVT.

The regional authorities plan to purchase operation services worth SEK 0.5 billion. “It is the biggest initiative this region has ever taken to reduce hospital queues overall”, says Regional Council Kenneth Backgård (SJVP).

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to cancelled operations and the operation waiting queues are mongst the longest in Sweden. Now, the regional council says it wants to purchase SEK 0.5 billion worth of operation services to catch up with the Corona-cancelled operations. At the same time, the Council has previously announced that it has to save SEK 1 billion by 2025.

Operation services are to be acquired in five specialist areas; orthopedy, surgery, gynecology, and ear-nose-throat. North Bothnia patients will be allowed to travel to any operation service provider with which the local authorities sign such agreements, primarily in the Nordic countries, however, other European countries may also be on the list.