In August 2024 the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden (Socialstyrelsen), published national guidelines for post covid, post influenza, post sepsis, post intensive care syndrome, ME/CFS and PANS/PANDAS. The guidelines are really unhelpful and has been heavily criticised, most of all by the Swedish Covid Association but also by some doctors and other healthcare professionals. Here is the forum thread on the August 2024 guidelines: https://www.s4me.info/threads/swede...ditions-and-syndromes-including-me-cfs.39771/ Today the Swedish government announced two new projects related to the current guidelines: The National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) and the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services (SBU) are being assigned "to produce knowledge reviews on post-covid" and "to map and analyse the treatment of children with post-covid". Here is the government's pressrelease: Ökad kunskap om postcovid och bättre behandling av barn https://www.regeringen.se/pressmedd...p-om-postcovid-och-battre-behandling-av-barn/
Uppdrag att ta fram kunskapsöversikter om postcovid https://www.regeringen.se/regerings...-att-ta-fram-kunskapsoversikter-om-postcovid/
Uppdrag till Socialstyrelsen att kartlägga och analysera behandlingen av barn med post-covid https://www.regeringen.se/regerings...nalysera-behandlingen-av-barn-med-post-covid/
Press release by the Swedish Covid Association: Regeringen ger Socialstyrelsen bakläxa https://covidforeningen.se/regeringen-ger-socialstyrelsen-baklaxa/ The Swedish Covid Association has shared the news on their Facebook page too. (Edited to change the translation of the word "bakläxa" from "a reprimand" to "an order to redo". Please let me know if you have a better suggestion.)
What does this mean? The problematic clinical guidelines from August 2024 include ME/CFS too. Has the government listened to the criticism only regarding post-covid, but not ME/CFS?
@MittEremltage shares her thoughts on the new projects on her blog today: Bakläxa eller belöning? https://mitteremitage.wordpress.com/2025/02/05/baklaxa-eller-beloning/
Yikes. Yup. This is even worse than industries facing penalties that are a tiny fraction of the gains they can make by ignoring regulations. They're getting rewarded for having failed. So they can fail the same way again. For which they will also be rewarded, by having their mediocre work elevated. I've rarely seen systems so gung-ho on rewarding failure. Even in business and politics there are limits to how bad things can get, as you end up losing elections or go bankrupt, or just lose your job. But health care isn't subjected to this pressure. When it fails, the worst that can happen, it seems, is that you may not get money to fail again. But you may also get money to fail again. So there's really not much incentive to bother making an effort. Their system. For their purposes. Their agendas. Their careers. To keep working age people employed and not much else. The rest is mostly for show. Hard to imagine a worst way of doing things. There are easily millions of ways that are just as bad. But, worse? Very hard.
