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Transforming Care for the Elderly through Dialogue - Lars-Ake Almqvist

The development of the Corona pandemic in Sweden has led to an intense debate about elderly care and how it should be designed for the future. Today there is a great consensus among politicians that care for the elderly requires more resources, and employees need better employment conditions.
Government-sponsored elderly care has come into focus now because about two-thirds of all deaths have occurred within that sector. There have been major shortcomings in the avail- ability of protective equipment and in the handling of hygiene routines. In many municipal- ities, 30-40% of all working hours are conducted by hourly wage earners. This means great staff mobility and poor continuity in the contact between staff and users. The same situation applies in private care facilities.
This paper is a follow-up to my earlier paper, “Economics and Time Management as a Vehicle for Dialogue”, written for the 2018 Academy of Professional Dialogue conference. In it I described in depth how our firm, Alamanco, established dialogic practices for all leaders and employees working at several care facilities in Swedish municipalities. Because of their dialogue-centred approach to management they were resilient and open to collaboration, as I have outlined, and therefore well prepared to manage the challenges of past months. In this paper I offer updates and perspective, using examples from three different municipalities who have had no cases of Coronavirus in their care homes or in-home elderly care. Data from health authorities in Sweden shows that, while in those municipalities in which Coronavirus was documented, the three municipalities described here had none. They have a stable organisation with staff, a great commitment from leaders and staff. They rapidly decided to deal with the situation and didn ́t wait for directives from authorities or government.

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