Swedish hospitals crippled as nurses' strike spread

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

STOCKHOLM (AFP) — Swedish hospitals and emergency wards struggled to stay open on Monday as nearly 4,400 health workers went on strike to support nurses who have already stopped work, their union said.

"There are more than 7,000 health care professionals on strike across the country. Every county has been affected," Anna Nybom Chance, spokeswoman for the Swedish Association of Health Professionals, Vaardfoerbundet, told AFP.

She said the effect of the additional nurses, biomedics and x-ray technicians joining the two-week-old strike was being felt in hospitals, emergency wards, blood banks and medical centres.

The main hospital in Sweden's third largest city, Malmoe, for instance said two-thirds of the facility had been shut down and that 273 of its patients...