Stop

[Ulf]

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am a son of a mother who lives in Sweden. My mother is right now in the Swedish ER. The doctors in Sweden do not know what causes the stop and they refuse to operate an 89 year old women. The official reason is that she is old and can die of the operation but I know the underlying reason since my wife's father died because of refussal to help old people and I have heard hundreds of other cases. That's what a socialistic medical system does but I am not here to complain about it. My crucial questions are a follows:
1) Are there methods in the US that minimize the operation risks of an old women?. Something is stuck in the "thin intesten" Swedish translation, sorry. The socialistic doctors at the ER say it could be a tumor, something stuck or a twisted "intesten". They don't know, they don't have MRI at the hospital.
2) If I bring my mother over here in an ambulance plane, can she survive the flight?
3) What can I tell the doctors in Sweden that they don't know about but should know about. Any web sites recommendations?
Thanks in advance. In the best medical system in the world, the US, I trust.
Ulf Sandstrom

[gertielu]

i am so sorry to hear about your mother, it really is a shame that they do not care better for the elderly in your county. i believe what you say about the socialized medicine not always working out well. American doctors are not a lot better, emergency room especially and after recieving horrible treatment in American you can be left liable for huge amounts of money. but if you insist on trying this method...
The first thing to do is find a doctor here that is willing to see your mother once she is here. Find out what the costs will be, you will have to pay the hospital as well as the surgeon, and most likely a private GI doctor. there will have to be multiple tests to determine her prognosis. this will all have to be done before they can tell you if they will operate. good luck

[Ulf]

Thank you KjFlicka for your advice. They will not move my mother to a more advanced hospital due to the socialistic system with limited resources. They refuse to operate. Here in the US, the doctors team do anything in their power to save people's lives. Not so in Sweden, they consider an old person not worthy of treatment since she has already lived a long life. It is disgusting and very sad to talk to these incompetent ER doctors in Sweden. They simply are not specialists as they are here in the US. Here, you will find the best and the brightest surgents (even some from Sweden work here, the best Sweden has to offer of course) and my mother would have been much better taking care of here. There are tons of testimonies of how they treat old people in Sweden. My wife's father (my father-in-law) hurt his head a couple of years ago. This happened in Orebro. Orebro did not have resources to operate on him to stop the internal bleeding. Uppsala did. They refuse to helicopter him over to Uppsala because of his age so he died. I was on the phone with the surgeon for an hour, urging him to helicopter my f-i-l but he refused. I have heard many, many stories like this. So what do I do now? Are you a doctor? Thanks for your comments. Ulf

[KjFlicka]

I'm afraid your experience here would be similar. Sweden is pretty darn advanced in their medicine and operating on the elderly is always a double edged sword. I would say she is better staying in Sweden, but can she be moved to a larger hospital in Stockholm or the University in Malmo?  They certainly have the latest equipment. They do have specialists in Sweden, too, so maybe inquire about that. Good luck.

KjFlicka