Unions are more concerned with politics than their core business

On June 5, 2024, Vardforbundet, a Swedish Healthcare Union for midwives, biomedical analysts, radiology nurses and nurses, chose to take its members out on strike due to excessive workloads with a lot of overtime. After 64 days of labor market conflict, the strike was called off after both the union and the employer had to compromise on their demands.

Omni, a Swedish news service, wrote an article on October 28, 2024 about shortcomings in the Swedish healthcare system in 2023 with catastrophic consequences quote "Last year 100 people died as a result of not receiving care at the right level and by staff with the right skills. It shows a review of incoming lex Maria notifications carried out by the professional association Sjukhuslakarna." unquote.

On the same day that Omni reports that Swedes are dying while being on waiting lists, Vardforbundet makes a statement asking the Swedish government for permission to receive and treat patients from Gaza, which the Swedish government decline. In my personal opinion, such a statement is just a political flirtation.

Roughly simplified, politics is about putting different groups against each other. Politics is largely about distributing the tax money that is available and distributing it among all the different groups that hope to get a share of the pie.

With Vardforbundet's statement, it can be concluded that there is no health care crisis and the health care has both space and time to treat foreign citizens. Or the Vardforbundet chooses to value the lives of foreign citizens more highly than Swedish ones because it is proven that people die in both places for lack of adequate care.

AI generated image with Grok