Gothenburg It’s bedtime for 94-year-old Aina Friman at the Sekelbo retirement home in the Kortedala district. Dementia has crept up on Aina and she needs Abdi Hersi’s help with most things. The 24-year-old care assistant came from Somalia in 2008 and is one of the many new Swedes who help ease pressure on a healthcare system strained by an ageing population. For Aina and the other residents in the five-storey house, he is both a personal assistant and an on-call fellow human being

Photograph: Lisa Thanner