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SWEDEN

Had domestic help six times a day - still lived in dirt, excrement and mess
Published 2024-03-04

A Swedish man who lives in the USA was told that his father in Gothenburg had died. The man traveled home to take care of the estate and then got a shock. But even though his father had domestic help six times a day, everywhere in the home was dirty. Ingrown feces, layers of dust and messy.

It is Magnus Hellberg who opened up to Göteborgs-Posten about his shock at seeing the chaos that his father Folke lived with in his home. This despite the fact that Folke had Gothenburg's city home service.

As soon as Magnus Hellberg stepped into the apartment, he realized that something was not right. It smelled musty and stuffy, but there was also gravel all over the floor.

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Magnus Hellberg has no siblings and that his parents have been divorced for 60 years. He therefore relied on the municipality's home service to do its job and take care of his father - especially since the home service staff visited Folke six times a day.

But that was not the case. In the apartment there were piles of dishes, embedded dirt on the floor, furniture and shelves. Further, furniture and gadgets were littered with noise.

It took Magnus Hellberg several days and about 40 garbage bags to get his father's apartment in order. This despite the fact that his father also had cleaning help with his domestic service.

- It's frustrating because I've been at it for months and have tried to arrange things for him. He had home care six times a day and it looks like this. The first thought is that you feel sad because he has lived his last weeks that way, but then you get pissed off, says Magnus Hellberg to GP and continues:

- You shouldn't have to live the damn way in this society. Everything was so dusty and it was dirty everywhere.

The municipality cannot comment
The City of Gothenburg closes the lid on their responsibility regarding Folke's life with the home service. Helena Skärby is operations manager at home care center 1 in the city and she says she cannot tell about what has gone wrong with reference to "confidentiality reasons".

But Skärby says that the municipality should "look at this" and "see what we can learn".

- I don't know if I can answer that question, but we are working on documenting and following up. We will look into this. When we receive these kinds of comments or complaints, we follow our routine and review what we could have done differently to prevent this from happening again. And see what we can learn.