Hospitals fear nurse shortage may make treatment guarantee impossible to implement
Not enough summer substitutes
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Many hospitals do not believe that the promised guarantee of treatment can be implemented in Finnish public health facilities next year.
As of October 2005, patients will be guaranteed hospital treatment within six months or less. However, hospitals in different parts of Finland have only had limited success in the dismantling of treatment queues.
A shortage of qualified substitutes during the summer holiday period this year meant that some hospitals did not have enough nursing staff to treat all patients adequately.
At the beginning of March a six-month transitional phase begins in which hospitals are expected to dismantle the remaining long treatment queues.
As of October next year all patients put on a waiting list before the beginning of March will be entitled to treatment on the basis of the six-month rule.
For instance, at the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), 500 substitute nurses are to be given permanent positions.
More than 1,000 qualified nurses in Finland do not work in the profession. Their return to nursing becomes the more difficult the longer they work at other jobs or stay at home.
The emigration trend among Finnish nurses has eased somewhat, and many who had moved to other countries are coming back. However, this return migration is not enough make up for the nurses reaching retirement age.
Jaana Laitinen-Pesola, chairwoman of the health care workers’ union TEHY, criticises Finnish municipalities for producing plenty of reports on health care, while doing almost nothing to improve the quality of the work itself, or health care workers’ pay.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 8.9.2004 - TODAY |
 Hospitals fear nurse shortage may make treatment guarantee impossible to implement |
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