The regions’ ambulance airlines, Kommunalförbundet Svenskt ambulansflyg, KSA, have been running their entire flight capacity since this spring: five jets at three bases in Umeå, Stockholm and Gothenburg, respectively, which will cover the entire needs of Sweden. The start has been fraught with problems, and delays and canceled transports have affected seriously ill patients, DN has shown in a review.
From the midsummer week and even the second week in August, KSA’s staffing is now decreasing. It appears from a message that was communicated internally in the business in early May. The reason is holidays and parental leave for both pilots and nurses.
Starting next week the five crews are reduced to four during the day, and from three to two at night, to cover the whole country. During the day, preparedness is reduced by half in Umeå, slightly less at Arlanda. At Arlanda, a crew will work from 11–23, but at night there is no emergency preparedness in Stockholm as normal.
KSA writes in an email that the number of aircraft in operation will be reduced from five to four during week 25-32, but union director Anders Sylvan points out that it is not about reduced preparedness.
“Through a changed schedule key, we strengthen our capacity during afternoons and evenings and at the same time we adapt our preparedness during late nights so that we then have an unused overcapacity,” writes Anders Sylvan.
When asked how the need for ambulance flights throughout the country should be covered during the summer, when not all aircraft are included in the contingency plan, Anders Sylvan refers to the fact that KSA has procured possible capacity from private suppliers.
“We assess that it does not affect our ability to perform all assignments ordered.”
Do you think it can affect patient safety?
“We have not reduced preparedness where it could affect patient safety.”
Ambulance flights are seasonal, and despite the fact that healthcare is generally reduced during the summer, the need is great, as Swedes holiday all over the country, get sick or injured far from home, according to people in the industry and healthcare, with whom DN spoke. It describes how patients are moved because of lack of care places. Like how patients are admitted to hospital in another region and that the home region, which then has to pay extra for care, wants to take home the patient who therefore has to be moved.
Mats-Ola Rödén (L), member of the Federal Council in Region Gotland and deputy member of KSA’s board, asked at the General Assembly meeting at the end of April whether KSA’s availability would decrease during the summer, and thus reduce the possibility of using the service, and was then told that it would not do so.
– I still do not know what availability we will have during the summer. For Gotland, the population is doubling in the summer, and we need greater preparedness, says Mats-Ola Rödén.
Before KSA’s traffic start in November, the ambulance flight was performed for the regions with nine aircraft from private suppliers.
Agneta Karlfeldt, Operations Manager on the operator Babcock, which previously had an agreement on ambulance flights with the regions in the north, points out that healthcare will close a lot during the summer. She describes based on experience from previous summers that many flights are due to maternity wards not being able to receive.
– It is common for pregnant women to fly with ongoing pain, says Agneta Karlfeldt.
She also says that patients are flown because the intensive care units are significantly reduced and that they have had full staffing even in summer.
During the spring, KSA entered into agreements with private suppliers, to be able to cover up when needed.
– We have not yet received any request from KSA to help this summer, says Agneta Karlfeldt.
Kommunalförbundet Svenskt Ambulansflyg, KSA
Sweden’s 21 regions started a municipal association in 2016 for joint procurement of ambulance flights. Instead, the municipal association has now started an airline under its own auspices, hired its own pilots and bought six jets. The purpose is, according to the federal regulations, to streamline ambulance flights to increase patient benefit and patient safety.
In November, aviation operations started in four northern regions based in Umeå. Since February, traffic has been running with air bases at Arlanda and Landvetter.
KSA is struggling with major economic problems, and in May the regions were invoiced in advance for flight hours not yet booked to prevent an economic liquidity crisis.
Source: DN, Swedish ambulance flight
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