MEDICAL PREPAREDNESS AND PATIENT MANAGEMENT IN SWEDEN

Abstract

In the light of the current war waged by Russia against Ukraine, the Swedish medical regulatory authority has asked the Swedish Radiation Emergency Medicine Centre (SREMC, the national WHO REMPAN liaison institute and an EBMT member dept) to provide advice on the medical consequences of high exposures to ionising radiation and the management of highly exposed persons. As a starting point, SREMC used a worst-case scenario (provided by the Swedish Defence Research Agency) of a nuclear weapon explosion at a Swedish coastal town. Our advice discussed four situations: 1) Radiation incident at a Ukrainian NPP (unlikely to seriously affect the Swedish population); 2) Spectator case of a nuclear weapon explosion in a neighbour country (limited effects for the Swedish population); 3) Requests for assistance with medical care in Sweden for Ukrainian radiation victims (a possible result of cases 1 and 2); and 4) Nuclear weapon explosion in Sweden (disastrous consequences for the Swedish population). We described the likely medical effects and suggested how medical establishments might prepare for these cases. In a second document, we suggested what medical countermeasures the authorities should stockpile. Finally, we list some desirable future developments in radiation emergency medicine.

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