Outrage in Sweden after it was revealed that not a single member of the staff at a nursing home could speak Swedish. When ambulance personnel responded to a call at a nursing home in Västerås, they were met by staff who couldn’t speak Swedish. A dementia patient with suspected sepsis had to be treated amid severe language barriers. The incident is “appalling,” says Minister for the Elderly Anna Tenje. An ambulance nurse describes in an incident report how communication was almost impossible. They went to the nursing home to pick up a dementia patient with suspected sepsis—but were unable to communicate with the staff, who did not speak Swedish and spoke their own language among themselves. They “could not convey more than a few simple words in Swedish to the ambulance staff.” “This is undignified for the elderly,” writes the nurse. The nurse said that the lack of language comprehension became particularly serious as the ambulance staff do not have access to the medical record system and are dependent on the staff's information about the patient's condition. “This is generally a very common problem, unfortunately. But this time it was extreme and very frustrating,” says the nurse. The ambulance personnel did not receive answers to basic questions about the patient, and the staff responded only with short expressions such as “don't know.” “The staff are responsible for an entire crowded ward with elderly, frail, Swedish-speaking individuals. This is undignified for the elderly, where no one on the staff can understand their simple requests,” the report states. Minister for the Elderly Anna Tenje (M) calls the incident “appalling” and points out that the government is working to introduce language requirements in elderly care. “The fact that there was not a single member of staff who could communicate in Swedish is appalling. In this case, it also put an elderly person's life at risk. This is not worthy of Swedish elderly care,” the minister writes in a statement.