Many wellbeing services counties are balancing on a knife edge because of economic difficulties. Cooperation negotiations, furloughs and other austerity measures have been commonplace for a long time.
The most recent examples include the cooperation negotiations at HUS Helsinki University Hospital, aimed at cutting around 1,000 jobs. In early summer, HUS announced a recruitment ban. In Central Finland, the fourth round of cooperation negotiations started last week. Similarly, cooperation negotiations were launched in the Wellbeing Services County of Southwest Finland.
The debate on the economy of the wellbeing services counties is overheated. What has been forgotten is that the legislation on funding was passed at a time when there was no knowledge of issues such as the treatment backlog caused by the pandemic. In addition to this, municipalities underbudgeted their healthcare and social welfare spending for years before the wellbeing services counties started operating at the beginning of last year.
According to the Ministry of Finance, wellbeing services counties have the right to additional funding if their residents’ fundamental rights to healthcare and social welfare or rescue services would otherwise be compromised.
According to Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen, the Government’s cutbacks have seriously compromised the fundamental rights of citizens.
– Wellbeing services counties definitely need more time to adjust their finances and cover their deficits. If next week’s budget session simply cuts healthcare and social welfare spending and fails to secure adequate funding for the wellbeing services counties, it is no stretch to argue that citizens will be deprived of access to care in life-threatening situations in the future.
The shortage of nurses is a serious problem in Finland as well, and has doubled in the last couple of years, according to Keva.
– Of course, these constant cuts, cooperation negotiations, austerity measures, furloughs and terminations do nothing to promote the attractiveness of the healthcare and social welfare sector. Indeed, it is highly contradictory that our government is more interested in cutting spending at a crippling pace than finding a sustainable solution to the nurse shortage.
Rytkönen demands that the wellbeing services counties be given the freedom to focus on developing their services and caring for citizens instead of having to constantly carry out cooperation negotiations.
– I expect next week’s budget session to offer a solution to the healthcare and social welfare crisis and stimulate discussion on important values. Cutbacks and cost-saving decisions are also about values — do we want the cuts to target the sick and elderly, or corporate tax benefits and private healthcare visits for the wealthiest?
Enquiries: Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen, requests for interview through Special Advisor Mila Huovinen, [email protected], tel. +358 400 540 005.