New article: Grandma is going to die – and we look away

Imagine your grandmother, mother, grandfather. She who baked cinnamon buns, he who told stories from the war and held your hand when you were scared. Now they sit and wait for home care. The plastic container with the industrially produced food needs to be heated in a non-existent microwave. The vegetables are pale, the pea patty tasteless and the potatoes overcooked. The nutritional content makes the elderly weaker each day. Undernourished, exhausted, alone. The staff don't have time to sit and talk. They hurry on to the next.

When she coughs a bit too much or seems tired, the ”comfort injections” suddenly appear. Palliative care, they call it. ”Grandma is going to die,” as the investigative journalism programme so ruthlessly revealed in its series. Medications intended for the very last hours of life are given to people who are still eating, drinking, and awake, sometimes without a proper medical examination and without relatives always being informed. This is not end-of-life care – it is active euthanasia in practice, hidden behind fine words and overloaded systems. How many grandmothers and grandfathers have faded away too early because someone somewhere thought it was "reasonable"?

Meanwhile, those who are still struggling are forced to deal with a society that no longer sees them. BankID, e-services and soon government digital IDs where everything is to be done via mobile phone or computer. Those who have never learned, who have trembling hands and impaired vision, or simply cannot afford the latest technology, are excluded. They cannot book appointments, pay bills or even ask for help. They become invisible. Forgotten in a Sweden that prioritises efficiency over human dignity.

This is not a coincidence. It is the result of a system that for decades has prioritised other things than those who built Sweden. We have seen how money has gone to things other than core operations, how bureaucracy and digitalization have hit the weakest hardest. And we, their children and grandchildren, have let it happen. We have hurried past, believing that our social safety nets work. Our parents have also believed that help would be there when it's needed most. But it isn't there anymore.

It's time to feel the shame. For real. For every cold meal, every unnecessary injection, every elderly person who can't reach their home care because the system demands an app.

We at Ambition Sverige In our party manifesto, we have a clear stance: elderly care should be based on Safety, dignity and respect for the individual human. The party Requires Legal protection in elderly care and that we prioritise Swedish pensioners who have toiled their entire lives. We want to significantly raise the basic deduction for pensioners so that those who built the country can keep more of their pension and avoid living in poverty. Migration, war and EU membership are draining resources from welfare – money that should instead go towards better food, more staff and care that doesn't treat people as costs.

We need a policy that puts people first again. That says no to digitalisation that excludes the generation that fought for our prosperity. That demands that palliative care is indeed relief – not a shortcut to death. That ensures food is warm, nutritious, and served with time and dignity.

Your grandmother, father or uncle doesn't deserve to die in silence while we scroll on. They deserve to be seen, heard and valued until the very end. It's time to wake up. It's time to demand elderly care with ambition – not acceptance of decline.

Anneli Kullberg

Ambition Sverige Mark