Liability and compensation independent of medical negligence: the new Swedish system

On the 1st of January 1975 a new system of Treatment Injury Insurance was introduced in Sweden. (Until then the rules of tort law governed all liability insurances.) Almost all medical attendance within, and much of the attendance outside, hospitals is managed by County Councils (Landstingen). The new insurance is contracted by the managing County Council to a pool of Swedish Insurance Companies. The total amount of the premiums for this first year is calculated to be 16 milj Skr (4 milj $ = 1/2$ per inhabitant per year). By treatment injury shall be understood "injury or illness of a physical nature...as a direct consequence...of...treatment (excepting natural or probably consequences of an act justified from a medical point of view), or of incorrect result(s) of technical examination or clinical diagnostics, or of accidents in hospitals, doctors' offices or in connection with ambulance services".