Sweden's healthcare watchdog has issued a stinging condemnation of the way elderly people in the country have been treated in care homes during the coronavirus pandemic, noting that some patients were left to die without a medical exam.
The Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) said the "serious flaws" could not only be blamed on the pandemic, concluding they existed even when the added stress of the virus outbreak was taken into account.
Of the 6,500 deaths linked to Covid-19 in Sweden, nearly half have occurred at elderly care homes and a quarter have been elderly people being cared for at home.
In an audit of care facilities during the period from March to June, IVO noted that a fifth of all coronavirus patients in care homes had not