Throughout her career, Märit Halmin has been committed to fair and equitable healthcare, especially in crises, conflicts and low-resource settings where you often have to work with limited resources. Now her work is now being honoured with the Swedish Society of Medicine’s Hippocrates Prize. Meanwhile she wants to continue championing issues related to prioritisation and decision-making when resources are scares.
The Swedish Society of Medicine recently announced that its 2026 ethics award – the Hippocrates Prize – will be awarded to Märit Halmin , with the citation: “for her strong, courageous and consistent commitment to people’s right to healthcare”. Märit Halmin divides her professional life between Södersjukhuset , where she works as a consultant and specialist in anaesthesia and intensive care, and Karolinska Institutet, where she conducts research and is an expert coordinator at the Centre for Health Crises . She also has a strong commitment to humanitarian organisations, not least through her work with Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organization (WHO). With these organisations, she has worked in countries including Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan, and most recently in Gaza. All her work, whether in Sweden or abroad, is shaped by her commitment to equality and fairness in how healthcare is provided, and by her desire to influence and drive change for the better. As she put it when the Swedish Society of Medicine announced that she had been awarded the prize:
– The prize highlights that we doctors are not merely technicians, but work within a society that affects both us and our patients. We must relate to that, but as doctors we also have a responsibility to try to influence society.
Engaged in issues of prioritisation
At the Centre for Health Crises, Märit Halmin has spent several years championing the issue of prioritisation. In a crisis, by definition, needs exceed resources and not everyone can receive everything. Priorities must therefore be set. Märit Halmin believes it is extremely important that this is done in an equal, fair and transparent way.
– During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, we saw individual doctors being forced to make difficult assessments and set priorities without any real support or backing from the organisation. Of course, there are ethical principles and guidelines, but they cannot be directly translated into clinical practice. We need clinically applicable tools that can be used on the ward, and we need a shared language for how we prioritise. This is important both for those of us working in healthcare and to ensure that our decision-making is transparent to our patients.
She says it is an honour that her commitment to ethical issues from a justice and equality perspective, and her determination to put this into practice regardless of the setting and circumstances, is now being recognised through this award. She hopes it can inspire others both to want to understand, and perhaps also to change, the society in which all health and medical care operates. The award will be handed out at the Swedish Society of Medicine’s Annual Ceremony on 20 October.
