Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District planning patient transfers

Some Finnish patients might be airlifted to Sweden

print this

The massive Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) is preparing for threatened industrial action by the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) by transferring some patients from units that are to be shut down to others that are still operating.
      However, the district is waiting until the latest possible moment to make the bulk of the transfers.
      HUS administrators are pleased with the bill on patient safety, which is scheduled for a Parliamentary vote on Friday. If the law takes effect, it might not be necessary to airlift some maternity and paediatric patients abroad.
      The bill, which is being pushed through Parliament so that it might take effect before the nurses' mass resignation campaign scheduled for Monday, allows local and regional authorities to order nurses to work at jobs that are vital for patients' survival.
      "I feel that it is something that will protect patients' lives, and not a deprivation of fundamental rights", says Veli Ylitalo, head of paediatrics at HUS.
      Also in favour of the proposed law is Reijo Haapiainen, head of surgery at HUS. About half of the nursing staff in adult surgery at HUS have joined the resignation campaign.
      Haapiainen says that half of the surgical nurses who have resigned - approximately 400 - would be needed for surgery to continue as before for even a week or two.
      HUS plans to issue orders to keep the nurses at work as soon as President Tarja Halonen signs the bill into law on Friday.
     
HUS personnel manager Anne-Maria Mäkinen says that those who have signed up for the resignation campaign, and who are at work on Friday, will be given written instructions on mandatory work.
      The nurses will be asked to sign the paper as received, and will then have 24 hours to respond to the state provincial office.
      Mäkinen says that at least 1,000 such papers are to be issued from Friday to Monday.
     
Under the patient safety bill, essential treatment includes intensive care, care for newborns and premature babies, as well as being on call.
      Birth, cancer cases requiring immediate treatment, dialysis, and immediate coercive psychiatric treatment are also all considered essential.
      Related urgent anaesthesia services as well as laboratory and radiological services also need to be dealt with.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tehy under pressure from other municipal organisations (14.11.2007)
  Parliament passes text of patient protection bill (13.11.2007)
  Government-sponsored patient safety bill fast-tracked in Parliament (12.11.2007)
  Mediation board begins efforts to reach settlement in labour dispute between nurses and municipal employers (1.11.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat