Healthcare stalwart to be honorary doctor
Pia Nilsson has been awarded an honorary doctorate. Throughout her 47 years in healthcare, the coronavirus pandemic was the biggest challenge, during which she was referred to as the Corona General by her colleagues.
"Very surprised and extremely honoured," that was the reaction of former healthcare manager Pia Nilsson when she learned that she had been awarded an honorary doctorate at Malmö University.
During her 47 years in the healthcare profession, she has been a bridge builder between the city of Malmö and the University, according to the citation.
At the end of May, she had a farewell party at the City of Malmö, where she had worked as unit head at the Health, Care and Social Services Administration. During the same week, she learned that she had been appointed honorary doctor at the Faculty of Health and Society at Malmö University.
"I was very surprised and extremely honoured, it's a feather in the cap of my entire administration."
Pia Nilsson
Among other things, she has been involved in setting up mobile care teams where doctors employed by the region together with nurses employed by the municipality carry out home visits to frail old people. She has also pushed for nurses to receive specialist training to increase their competence about what it is like to work in the municipality. Additionally, she has been involved in making it easier for student nurses to find a workplace for their clinical placement and in extending the placement from four to six weeks.
Much of what has motivated Nilsson to pursue all these collaborations has to do with how care can be improved for the individual patient, especially the elderly: "It's important to remember that it's an individual who needs help.”
This belief has also been a common thread throughout hercareer in care. Her first job was as a care assistant, since then she has held several titles such as district nurse, healthcare strategist, and unit manager. She has also been involved in countless care contracts and care crises. By far the biggest challenge for her was the coronavirus pandemic during which she shouldered a lot of responsibility for the municipality's coronavirus management and was constantly in contact with journalists.
“You didn't know what would happen from one day to the next or how the virus would act or spread. And we didn't have enough protective equipment to protect our elderly, we had to impose restraining orders – it was terrible.”
However, she notes that the situation would have been even worse if the municipality and the region had not worked so closely together.
"We were able to start a covid shelter in just one week. As soon as an elderly person became infected in a home, that person was moved there to break the chain of infection," she adds.
