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Part 1
DOMESTIC/ SWEDEN
Now healthcare workers must be cured of their "unconscious" racist prejudices
Published 2023-12-25

Swedish healthcare is permeated by racism. At least the Board of Health and Welfare is convinced of that. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals all "unknowingly" carry around prejudices that make them racists. But now they must be made aware so that the patients who are currently exposed to structural racism get "the right to care on equal terms".

In order to remedy this widespread problem among healthcare workers, the National Board of Health and Welfare has spent an unspecified number of tax kroner on developing "educational material" to reprogram all racists in healthcare to non-racists. Only then can Sweden get "equal care".

How this racism manifests itself more concretely is not exemplified, nor is it stated which groups are currently exposed to it. But by undergoing this new training under the auspices of the National Board of Health and Welfare, everyone in healthcare now has the opportunity to "reflect" on the racist treatment they subject their patients to.

It is also flagged that this is only the first step in turning all of Sweden's care facilities into workplaces where everyone thinks right. The course participants are encouraged to research for themselves what changes they want to work on in order to deal with racism in healthcare and to make sure that after completing the training, it does not creep back in.

Even dentists are described as a racist guild in need of taking the course, as is everyone who in a wider sense works with wellness and health care. Allegedly racist Swedish patients who treat health care workers of Hitrest origin badly are also singled out as a problem. In the past, a big deal has been made of the fact that some racist Swedes prefer to see a Swedish doctor, trained in Sweden, who speaks good Swedish.

Online training with accompanying group discussions
Logistically, to give everyone the opportunity to get rid of their unconscious racist prejudices, the course has been designed as an online course.

People who can be considered above any suspicion of being racists should be entrusted with a mentoring material and guide the participants on the right path. Unless they are particularly hardened racists, the reprogramming shouldn't take more than an hour.

When this has been taken to heart, in stage two there is a day of "dialogue" where the participants can confess to each other their past sins and testify to their newfound insights to apply when returning to their care duties. Here, it is estimated that more time is needed, up to half a working day, and if the need for confession is great, you can gather on several occasions.

In order for the anti-racist values ​​to be embedded in the spinal cord and for people not to relapse into their previous prejudiced behaviour, there are also a number of group exercises that healthcare workers can carry out regularly after completing the course.

The National Board of Health and Welfare also leaves room for adapting the education to current needs and situations. In healthcare facilities where structural racism is particularly deep-rooted, more effort may be needed, while standard implementation may be sufficient in hospitals, medical centers and dental offices where prejudice is more moderate.

Criticized 'Doctors against racism' behind the initiative
The initiator of the training is a group that calls itself " Doctors against racism" . Through their darker skin color and geographically distant origin, these healthcare workers believe they have insights that others, especially white Swedes, in healthcare lack.

They are eager to convey these "scientific facts" to everyone in the workplace. They want to "make visible the structural racism in Swedish healthcare", they write on their website.

Representatives of the organization have written debate articles that have been published in several major media and which are aimed at the general public in order to create insight into how widespread racism is in Swedish healthcare and how great the need is therefore to overcome it.

The problem is very serious, the organization says, because doctors and healthcare workers today "kill racialized people" by giving them racist care. It is something that Samnytt has previously noticed.

And now the diligent information work has thus paid off in the form of the National Board of Health and Welfare's training initiative. Now all care workers can be made aware in a different way than when the association was at the mercy of its own more limited resources.