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Poisonings hit Gothenburg health office

A series of mysterious poisonings which sent several people to hospital continues to baffle both police and employees from a home healthcare office in Hisingen near Gothenburg.

Published: 23 January 2009 09:34 CET

The lunchroom refrigerator remains locked and employees have been warned not to leave their food unattended.

“The atmosphere is tough, no one trusts anyone,” one employee who wished to remain anonymous told the Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper.

“We can’t even leave a coffee mug if we need to go to the bathroom.”

Since August, a total of five workers have taken ill on three different occasions after eating in the office lunchroom.

One of the poisoning victims required transport to the hospital by ambulance, and a total of three were hospitalized from the resulting symptoms.

Police were called in September after traces of a white substance were found in some of the remaining food, which has been sent for analysis to the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science (Statens kriminaltekniska laboratorium – SKL).

“The people had clear signs of poisoning and, on one occasion, traces of a powdery substance were found in the food,” David Hallberg, an investigator with Hisingen police, told the newspaper.

“We haven’t found reasonable suspicions against anyone. It’s a real nightmare scenario where everyone suspects everyone.”

While police have closed their investigations into the first four cases, the fifth case remains open and is expected to be completed in February.

In the mean time, the office’s 45 employees, most of whom are caregivers and healthcare workers, continue to avoid eating in the lunchroom as they attempt to put the poisonings behind them.

“This has been traumatic for us,” the local district healthcare director Anita Wenblad told GP.

“We’ve had a good working relationship with the police but it’s obviously frustrating that it hasn’t been possible to come up with anything concrete. Right now we’re working on distancing ourselves from speculation and sticking to the facts.”

Wenblad added that there hasn’t been any reason to believe that someone would want to harm the team of healthcare workers.

Six things we just learned about the sex lives of Swedes

In collaboration with pollsters Verian, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) quizzed just over 1,000 people in Sweden on how they feel about their sex lives.

It found that Swedes are generally happy with their sex lives, but are having less sex with partners than they used to. But that doesn’t have to be a negative, said RFSU.

“It could be because of several things. It could be that our lives are more stressful, but also that we prioritise other things these days. A third factor could be that we’ve got better at listening and allow each other to say no to sex when we don’t feel like it,” said RFSU expert Pelle Ullholm in a statement presenting the new study.

Few Swedes have sex more than once a week

Almost one third (32 percent) said they had had sex with a partner between one and five times in the past month. However, only nine percent said they had had sex between six and ten times, and six percent said they had had sex more than ten times.

Women have more sex than men – but men masturbate more

Exactly one in five (20 percent) women said they had not had any sex with a sexual partner in the past month, compared to 28 percent of male respondents.

When it comes to masturbation, 27 percent of men and 33 percent of women said they had masturbated between one and five times in the past month. But 18 percent of men said they had masturbated more than ten times, compared to only 2 percent of women.

Only 6 percent of men said they had not masturbated at all, compared to 25 percent of women.

Why do Swedes have sex?

Asked what need sex fulfils in their life right now, most people (58 percent) answered “intimacy”, followed by “it’s fun/hot” (45 percent), and “strengthening my relationship” (43 percent). Four percent said they’re having sex in order to have a baby.

Thirteen percent said sex doesn’t fulfil a need for them right now, or does so very little. This share was much higher among women (17 percent) than men (9 percent).

Swedes are happy with their sex lives

The majority of Swedes are happy with their sex lives, the study found, which suggests that the quality of the sex matters more than the quantity.

Women are happier than men: 54 percent of women said they were very or somewhat satisfied with their sex lives, compared to 48 percent of men.

And conversely, 28 percent of men said they were very or somewhat dissatisfied, compared to 18 percent of women.

The conversation around consent is changing

In 2018, Sweden introduced a so-called “consent law”, which changed the legal definition of rape. Under the new law, both participants need to have actively signalled consent either verbally or otherwise. That and the #MeToo movement have both been credited with changing how Swedes talk about sexual relations and consent.

Fourteen percent of women said their partner or partners had improved their communciation around sex as a result of the public discourse, compared to 8 percent of men. And 8 percent in total said it had made them act differently.

The majority (59 percent) said their communication was already good.

Sex is maybe not taboo, but still private

Despite the report by RFSU, and open Swedish attitudes towards sex in general, it appears people are still reluctant to talk about their own sex lives. Around one in five declined to answer the questions about how often they masturbated or had sex.

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