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[Translated] I have long cared for my sister and my mother, and now my husband who has cancer and is bedridden! I wish someone [could support me] for a few hours or once a few days so that I could go away once with my daughter and granddaughter or make a trip!

[Translated] I have placed my mother in a nursing home due to advanced dementia. What is missing there are people who occupy themselves with the old people. […] Due to Corona and very limited visitation opportunities, loneliness is increasing. Thus all voluntary visiting services fall flat. […] As much as one pushes the models to accommodate old and young in shared apartments together, I found that my mother with advancing age – who loves her great-grandchildren very much – is simply more stressed when she is visited, it is too loud, too wild, etc.. So she doesn’t want to attend family gatherings anymore either. For a while she was very enthusiastic about the day care center in [redacted] – there she was offered everything she needed. Someone talked to her, they played and made music together, they prepared the snack together, etc. This combination between home and day care center would be IDEAL in my opinion.

[Translated] I don’t understand why people with high income and property don’t have to pay for their own place in [residential] care homes!

[translated -excerpt] I would like to see society organise a systemic way of funding care for older people in their own homes for as long as possible, and then in institutions when they need it. Funding should be provided through long-term contributions to an individual’s fund, as for a pension, or through insurance. The problem of paying for care for the elderly is a major problem, and the hardship and burden on the person being cared for and on those close to them is great.

The government should invest in training social workers, so that quality of care is as high as possible, and at the same time the social status of social workers, professional carers and nursing staff is raised, they are better paid, and young persons would like to choose such careers.

[translated] Let’s not abandon the elderly, they do not deserve that.

Both my parents died in a nursing home. I believe that had there been appropriate in-home care available outside of the hours of 9am to 5pm that my mother might have been able to live at home. As it was she suffered a severe fall at night and was admitted to hospital and declined there to the point that she required full-time care. The cost of overnight carers was exorbitantly expensive. The government should put more resources into providing high quality home care which doesn’t end at 5pm when patients are most vulnerable

Thanks for keeping this in the public eye. No easy answers, I’m not sure I agree with all of mine today, but we must keep trying!!

Start to talk openly [about] discrimination of elderly in Sweden which has been going on AT least 20 years by now [emphasis in original].

[translated] You’ve made me think … I will have to come up with a plan for the future.