[Large regional differences in Swedish intensive care. A nation-wide inquiry shows that the lowest number of beds is in big cities].

Shortage of beds in intensive care units has been an issue of intense debate. We studied the distribution of ICU-beds and staffing by sending two web-based questionnaires (Oct 2001 and April 2002) to the director of all single- and multi-disciplinary intensive care units (ICUs) in Sweden. Responses were received from 90% and 95% of a total of 89 ICU directors. During April 2002 782 ICU-beds were available (8.7 per 100 000 inhabitants). Almost 200 beds were not available due to budgetary reasons or lack of personnel. Bed availability and staffing varied from 4.82 ICU-beds and 8.2 staff per bed in the Stockholm area to 13.85 ICU-beds and 3.7 staff per bed in one of the other healthcare regions (Northern Healthcare Region). These differences in regional distribution of ICU-beds and staffing must be discussed carefully taking factors such as distance between units and case-mix into consideration.