A gloomy situation
Barbro Benjaminsson confirms this depressing
picture.
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In Gothenburg, for instance, there are no functioning treatment
homes that provide training, and in Gothenburg it is also difficult,
or even impossible, for people with psychotic disorders to receive
psychotherapy. The situation is disastrous all over the country.
There is a need for intermediate kinds of living for people with
mental illnesses, places where they can live more than temporarily.
And at the nursing establishments that exist, the staff is worn
out. In the district Majorna in Gothenburg, 98 persons are queuing
for group living, says Barbro Benjaminsson.
In Stenbäcken in the southern part of
Sweden there is a treatment home, but it is located far away from
many patients’ home district. To become separated from one’s
relatives and one’s ordinary environment makes the patient
feel inharmonious and insecure. Older people are often in the majority
at many of the nursing homes around Sweden, which is not always
a suitable situation for younger people.
- The politicians in some districts in Gothenburg
say they cannot afford to create group homes and treatment homes,
but they can afford to pay for the patients who are placed in nursing
homes far away from the city, although this is very expensive. Besides,
the nursing homes are not always functioning very well, which is
the reason they are now being reviewed by the National Swedish Board
of Health and Welfare, says Birgitta Funkquist.
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