Swedish News:

Moslem holiday. One patient drained Sweden’s blood supply. Vermin – a growing problem in Sweden. Actress Annalisa Ericsson has died. 

  • Moslem holiday
    Sweden needs a Moslem holiday, according to Carin Jamtin, Party Secretary for the Social Democratic Party. Jämtin wants the Swedish holidays looked over in a special investigation. “It’s been a long time since we looked over (our Swedish holidays),” she says. “Almost all of our holidays are of Christian origins, except for Midsummer and May first. But Sweden today is a multi-cultural society, and it’s worth it to see what can be done.” What a decision potentially could mean is that one existing holiday would be removed in favor of a new one. Jämtin doesn’t think it is possible to add more holidays than Sweden already has, but won’t speculate in solutions. But she has suggestions on what could become the first Moslem holiday in Sweden. “It’s worth it to consider Eid (Eid ul-Fitr), which is the Moslem equivalent of Christmas.” The organization Humanisterna (the Swedish Humanist Association), think the idea with a Moslem holiday is absurd however. “Most people in Sweden are secularized. Christmas is not celebrated because of Christian beliefs. It’s just an occasion to meet, eat and be with family. The same goes for Moslems, says Christer Sturmark, Chairman of the Humanisterna. “And Christmas is, by the way, not a Christian holiday to begin with. It was the day when the Romans celebrated the Sun God.” Sturmark thinks its better to have a pool of holidays and let the individual choose when he wants to take off. “Then you have a holiday when you want to. If you want to celebrate Ramadan, then you can take that day out of the pool of days.”
    Holiday or not, the need for new mosques seems to be growing in Sweden... New Mosques in Sweden

  • One patient drained Sweden’s blood supply
    An organ transplant conducted in Göteborg drained all of southern Sweden’s blood supply. Now the Sahlgrenska Hospital has been reported for the incident. “I’m critical to the fact that one patient can empty the entire blood bank,” says Yassin Abdullah Abdi, a nurse. The transplant ran into complications, which led to the need of more blood than expected. Hospitals in Lund, Malmö, Varberg, Borås, Uddevalla, Lindköping and Stockholm helped – still it was not enough blood. Sahlgrenska ended up having to buy blood from Finland. Mats Tullgren, Head Physician at Sahlgrenska believes the hospital has done nothing wrong. “We have a national assignment to carry out transplants, and must therefore have resources to do so,” he says.

  • Vermin – a growing problem
    Swedish homes are being attacked by record numbers of vermin, mostly cockroaches and bedbugs. For those suffering it is of course a huge problem, and it can take several sanitation treatments to get rid of the pests. “We (Swedes) travel to places where there are a lot of roaches and bedbugs. It’s then easy to get them home in the luggage and once you have them in your house, it’s a problem,” says Håkan Franzén at Trygg-Hansa, the Swedish insurance company. Between 2009 and 2010 the number of reported sanitation cases for roaches increased from 528 to 2,701 and for bedbugs it increased from 548 to 1,484. And these are just the numbers from Trygg-Hansa; the numbers at other insurance companies are similar. During the period 2006-2010 the increase in roaches in Sweden was 865%, and with bedbugs 631%. “Roaches can spread diseases like jaundice and salmonella, but we don’t know of the bedbug spreading any diseases,” continues Håkan Franzén. Pest technician Staffan Hansson explains that many get sleep problems when they have bugs in their homes. And he gives travelers the following tips: “Wash your clothes in 60 C (140 F) and put your suitcase in a closed garbage bag on your balcony, don’t bring it into your rooms.”

  • Actress Annalisa Ericsson has died
    Popular actress Annalisa Ericsson has died at the age of 97. Ericsson’s career spanned several decades, and she was enormously versatile. During almost 30 years, she was considered one of Sweden’s greatest actresses. She was also a dancer. She worked with, among others, Ernst Rolf, Nils Poppe, and Ingmar Bergman. She was perhaps most famous for her parts as Lisa Larsson in “Kyss henne!”, Nanette in “Blåjackor” and Gull in “Tappa inte sugen” as well as her role as Kajsa Hillman in the Hillman thrillers.