Swedish News:

11-year old thrown off train. Patient slept in bathroom. 

  • 900 applied for teachers’ ID
    About 900 teachers so far have applied for the new teacher’s IDs through Skolverket’s web site. However, the great onrush isn’t expected until schools open at the end of August. All of Sweden’s 180 000 teachers must apply for the new ID before July 1 2015, and the ID shows what classes, years and subjects the teacher may teach. “Everybody must apply before 2015,” says Ann Carlson Ericsson at Skolverket. “The ones who lack ID after that date may no longer grade students.”

  • Swiss roll in library book
    Did you lose something? An unpaid bill? A photo? A letter? At Jönköpings Stadsbibliotek (City Library of Jönköping) you can visit an exhibition with stuff people like you and me have forgotten in books we’ve taken out from the library. The exhibition is limited to the children and youth sections of the library, so there are no “Happy 65th Birthday” cards to be seen. What you will see are things like: a boarding pass for a flight to Singapore, chewing gums (un-chewed), plastic bookmarks, and Q-tips (unused). “One of the bookmarks says ‘Books are best’,” says Mi Brötegård, one of the librarians who have curated the exhibition. “But here’s also a chocolate praline, which probably contained mint filling at some point.” The chocolate has spread over several pages in the book. Yet there are worse things: “A colleague of mine in Vetlanda once found a piece of Swiss roll as a bookmark in a book,” says Brötegård. For more information:
    http://lingonline.jonkoping.se/stadsbibl.htm

  • 11-year old thrown off train
    An 11-year old girl who couldn’t produce a ticket on a train between Örebro and Göteborg, was thrown off by personnel. The girl was then lost for 12 hours before police found her in Kumla. “It is illegal to travel without a ticket,” says Information Officer Sven-Ingvar Håkansson at SJ (the Swedish State Railways). According to SJ, the girl spoke very little Swedish and her older sister, who is 22 years old and who had the tickets, was in the restroom when the train conductor came. The older sister continued traveling to Göteborg, believing her younger sister was onboard the train. The incident took place at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, but the Örebro police was not contacted until three hours later. The older sister didn’t alert train personnel until she reached Alingsås, outside of Göteborg, which was at 9:30 pm. The train had then changed personnel, and the new staff contacted police. The conductor, who had asked the young girl to leave, was no longer on the train. The 11-year old girl was found safe in Kumla where an old lady had taken care of her, after having found her crying. Since the Kumla train station had closed for the night, the lady had let the girl sleep in her apartment. The girl came with her sibling from Kongo to Sweden two years ago says her 19-year old brother. “We have no parents,” he also said. “It is terrible what happened, but she was taken care of by a nice lady.” The female conductor who threw the girl off the train, says she thought she was much older than 11. Continues Information Officer Håkansson: “What happened is very sad, but the personnel didn’t understand there was another sibling with tickets on the train, it was difficult to communicate.” The train conductor has been taken off duty.

  • Patient slept in bathroom
    Because Ängelholm’s hospital was filled to capacity, the 69-year old female patient had to sleep and eat inside a handicap bathroom. “It is insulting,” she says. She was later offered a bed in a room with two male patients, but she turned it down. The director of the hospital’s emergency room says they sometimes have to use temporary hospital beds but admits she herself wouldn’t want to sleep in a bathroom.”