From Sweden’s effort to help fight Ebola to correctional treatment officers who let tax payers pay for luxury vacations. This and more is what you can read about in this week’s edition of NotW.
Sweden makes effort to fight Ebola
According to Sydsvenskan, Sweden contributes with 240 million SEK in order to fight Ebola, which makes Sweden the fifth largest contributor in the world. According to, Development Minister, Isabella Lövin (MP), the aid is meant to contribute in helping with everything from funerals to taking care of nursing staff. In addition, she indicates that Sweden is willing to contribute with even more money. Gabriel Wikström (S), Minister of Health, says that Sweden’s healthcare system is prepared and that the most important measure for public health is to fight the Ebola outbreak where it takes place.
The Swedish Broadcasting Cooporation reported that Barack Obama called Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on Thursday afternoon to, among other things, give him compliments for Sweden’s efforts to fight Ebola. Svenska Dagbladet reports that Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency is recruiting people to travel to West African to help fight Ebola. Thursday evening they had received about 200 applications.
Suggested smoking prohibition
Aiming to stop passive smoking causing lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases, the Public Health Agency of Sweden suggests that playgrounds, open-air cafés and bus stops should become smokeless zones. In a series of articles, SVT also writes about the prohibition from several points of view.
Liberal debater, Mattias Svensson can see many problems with this kind of restriction. He thinks the suggestion signals a lack of respect. He points out that smoking needs to be a decision taken by adults, even though it’s unhealthy. He also questions the fact that these people will become criminalized if a prohibition is introduced. The labour organisation for hotels and restaurants, on the other hand, welcomes the new suggestion. For them, the fact that smoking is allowed in a working environment is a problem.
The right wing says no to health care for illegal immigrants
In the newspaper Sydsvenskan this Wednesday, one can read that the Socialdemokraterna and the Miljöpartiet in Skåne want to supplement the free healthcare for illegal immigrants to include planned health care as well.
The right-wing parties are opposed to the decision. They think there should be a limit to what the Swedish taxpayers should pay for. However, Henrik Fritzon, from the Socialdemokraterna and head of the region council says, that introducing planned and free health care is the only reasonable thing to do. Planned health care that is not performed usually leads to emergency health care.
Luxury vacations for correctional treatment staff
On Friday Dagens Nyheter wrote that correctional treatment staff take days off for luxury vacations after escorting criminals to their countries of residence. The Swedish Broadcasting cooperation has been examining these trips.
These trips have, according to the correctional treatment authority, become the norm; a norm the taxpayers have to pay for. Head of the transport department, Hans Lagerlöf, says that they are now going to look into how to regulate the costs around these trips, in order to come to terms with what is reasonable and not.
