4 OFWs in ‘unsafe’ clinics in Sweden to be repatriated

Four Filipino health-care workers will be repatriated from Sweden next week, even as the Philippine Embassy in Stockholm urged the Swedish government to look into the operations of “unsafe” clinics there amid the outbreak of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

“We have four [health-care workers] working in a place that was unsafe, so they asked for our assistance. We have informed the Swedish government of these situations, wherein the clinics are not safe,” Charge d’Affaires Raul Dado said in a Laging Handa public briefing.

“[The Swedish authorities] have assured us that they will impose penalties on those places without safety protocols. Nonetheless, we will repatriate our countrymen who have expressed their concerns,” Dado said, adding that Filipinos in Sweden remain free of COVID-19.

Dado said the Philippine Embassy in Stockholm remained open for consular and notarial services, except for requests for passport renewal or extension, which could be processed at the Philippine Embassy in Oslo, Norway.

There are at least 24,456 Filipinos in Sweden as of 2018, according to a Swedish government statistics agency.