Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

WONSAs funding 

 

Q: How is WONSA funded? 

A: About 10-20% of WONSAs costs are covered via primary health-care referrals, patient fees and privately paying patients. The remaining 80 - 90% of our life-saving work has been funded through grants, gifts and volunteer work. 

 

Q: What funding is WONSA looking for?

A: We are looking for long-term, stable financial support so that we can help more patients and also offer them stability. Since our start, we have only received funding, grants or agreements with municipalities for a shorter time-period, meaning that we have been forced to ration access to our clinic. Currently we have over 1000 patients waiting for treatment, and the number is increasing. With stable funding we could treat thousands of patients who desperately need help. 

 

Wait times, care programs & guidelines

 

Q: How long are the waiting times for WONSA's specialist clinic?

A: Due to changed agreements within the primary healthcare system in Sweden, the queues have been completely stagnant between January 1 - March 31, 2021. Now we can announce that the queues are moving again, but slowly. We are currently admitting patients that have been waiting for five years. 

 

Q: Why are the wait times so long?

A: The number of patients far outstrips the funding available to us.

Unfortunately, sexual abuse is common and there has been a lack of access to specialist care for a long time. This means that there are many patients who need help, and that many patients are in need of long-term care. 

In addition, The fact that existing contract models are not adapted to the type of care that many sexual abuse survivors need means that WONSA is dependent on gifts, grants and volunteer work. This in turn means that the processing times become longer and that our queues consistently grow.

WONSA has developed a scalable concept both for specialist clinics and for education, ready to be spread throughout Sweden and across the world. The only thing missing is funding. 

 

Q: What treatment programs and treatment guidelines does WONSA use?

A: WONSA uses internal treatment programs and guidelines based on the latest available international studies and our own extensive experience.

There are currently no national treatment programs or guidelines for non-emergency care for injuries after sexual abuse. There are only treatment programs and guidelines for various symptoms and specific diagnoses, such as PTSD.

Our experience and international studies indicate that it is difficult for many patients with injuries after sexual abuse to carry out PTSD treatments with traditional methods.

In addition, many of our patients have many different symptoms and diagnoses at once, meaning that the methods focusing on individual symptoms are inadequate.

Also, many of our patients have complex PTSD (CPTSD), a diagnosis that is not yet implemented in Swedish healthcare and therefore does not have any treatment program or guidelines attached to it. However, there is a lot of experience in the treatment of CPTSD, that we use at the clinic.

Finally, many patients also have Dissociative identity disorder (DID), where there is also a lack of national treatment programs and guidelines.

We collaborate and take guidance from national and international experts to secure the quality of our treatment programs and guidelines.

WONSA conducts research and collaborates with the medical association EIRA with the goal of establishing national treatment programs and guidelines.