The Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics met in Kalmar, Sweden, the 22-23rd of May 2014, for its yearly two-day meeting, to discuss current ethical matters and issues and to meet representatives from the Kalmar County Council.
One issue the Council discussed, was the ongoing project analyzing whether it is ethically acceptable to permit so called co-payments in public health care when it comes to supplementary health care services and products that is not covered by public financing. A report will be published in October 2014.
Another issue on the agenda regarded ethical aspects on the last years’ dramatic increase of ADHD-diagnoses among children and adults. A conference on the subject will take place the 9th of October 2014, at Rosenbad Concerence Centre, located in the Government Offices.
The Council also started up a new project concerning ethical aspects on robots and surveillance in the health care of the elderly. Several guests were invited to talk about possibilities and ethical challenges associated with the new technologies. The new technologies include for example communication robots, social robots, surveillance cameras and GPS surveillance devices.
Swedish media has also reported on the new project.