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dear mr jörgen andersson

i was interested to see your unsual job ad the other day (maybe it's my swedish but the wording seems to have changed - i wonder why?) esp as my swedish relatives have been banging on for some time that i should be looking at getting a job over there, coincidentally enough at your very hospital. not only that but a while back we had someone come back from södersjukhuset and, as the only person in my hospital with any capacity for reading swedish, i was most impressed with the documentation and the care the patient had received, something much discussed amongst my colleagues. many questions were asked, what was swedish healthcare like, how do nurses work, all that sort of stuff. well, i said, it's sweden, it's all really professional. and again, even moreso, when my partner's mother was admitted, again i think to your very hospital, not so long ago, the care was second to none.

oddly tho, altho both these people had lots great to say about their care, neither mentioned how hot their nursing staff were. maybe i've made a mistake and they didn't go to your establishment but it was in fact somewhere else - you'll excuse me but i don't know the swedish for 'hospital with the ugly nurses up the road'. perhaps it's a cultural thing. i was aware that you swedes are allowed to refuse service if, how shall i put it, your public servants are a bit too brown but i wasn't aware that they copuld do so if their health care professional had, in their eyes, a kinship with a welder's bench.

would it be impertinent then to ask if the hospital has perhaps an affinity for the sweden democrats?a local hospital for local people? i only ask as these jobs are advertised to cover for the locals, natives if you like, getting away for their summer holidays. and given what appears to an immigrant, unused to the fine nuance of swedish humour, a blatantly sexist ad, the notion of a hospital known as the white pearl gives me pause.

you say, mr jörgen andersson, in what is surely the type of healthcare management bullshit recognised by healthcare workers the world over, you've received no negative feedback over this advert. perhaps you've heard of a new fangled thing called the internet. all over the globe it seems, tabloid newspaper types are falling over themselves to draw attention to your ad, accompanying it with some stock picture of a 'hot nurse' (maybe it's the way i'm googling it but no male nurses in their pants?). again, i know that the sense of humour on the northern latitudes is far more developed than that of your pedestrian european cousins but for the rest of us (and specifically the uk) i can pretty much assure you that if i tried putting out an ad like that i'd be in some serious bother. (what's that you say, today you and your nurse buddies have released an apology? but if you had 'no negative feedback'.... then that would make what you said untrue. surely a mistake in translation.)

it was a strange gambit i have to say, using a 'quote' from a patient in a job advert (i can only assume you utilise a patient story approach and will have evidence to back this up). myself, of all the things i've seen and heard over my years in healthcare, a demand for hot, hipster nurses isn't one of them. call them quirky but most folk seem to want that competency thing happening to them.

so despite coming from that terrible uk, i don't think i'll be up for applying to your hospital anytime soon. it's not that i don't like an onsite gym, avoid a grill at work, especially if it comes with karoake nor am i averse to a 58 kroner tea. it's not about the salary which, let's face it, is a wee bit on the short side. i would avoid any categorisation as one of those skinny jeans wearing singlespeed riding wannabes but i would have to admit that in my day, yes it's possible, i could have been described in the modern parlance as a hipster. my partner t will affirm my looks as smokin hot. yes, she will.

no, i'm lucky enough to work with a bunch of people who, whatever their sartorial shortcomings, are professionals, who work on and on and on in circumstances that, frankly, i couldn't. you, mr jörgen andersson would do well to be a lot more circumspect in your attempts at humour and to treat them with a little more respect

*i should point out that these comments are those of an individual and none of the above should be taken as representative of any organisation or profession associated with healthcare in the uk. one thing sweden has going for it far more than the uk is an actual commitment to freedom of expression no matter how much they may not like it.

also, i'm sure mr jörgen andersson has had enough pelters about this along with his colleagues and i'm not suggesting anything more needs done beyond today's apology. he'll be getting enough grief from his countryfolk for making the place look bad.

further, i want to say again that swedish healthcare, if you've got the right insurance, is in my experience, rather excellent. some swedish people may disagree with this but, in the main, i think they're mistaken.