Swine flu may reduce number of available child-minders in Helsinki area

Child care businesses prepared to hire large number of new recruits

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If a swine flu epidemic hits Helsinki with main force, the Finnish capital may run out of child-minders, or so believe the people in charge of the companies providing such services in the area.
      “If a strong influenza peak hits the area, it is certain that we will not be able to respond to the child care need”, says Tarja Satuli-Kukkonen, Head of Child Care Services at the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare.
      “At this stage we cannot promise anything”, repeats Child Care Department Head Mona Jonsson from The Family Federation.
      If lucky, one can shake off swine flu in three days, but in the worst case the illness may require two weeks of bed rest. A third of the Finnish population is expected to contract H1N1 at some stage.
      On Monday workers at the firm Kodinavux, which provides child-minding and home-help services to companies, noticed that businesses have woken up to the idea of double-checking their child-minding contracts.
      “This has been a very busy day. Offers have been requested and new contracts have been signed left and right”, Kodinavux managing director Leena Mauno explains. Her company provides child minding services to employees of 400 businesses in the Greater Helsinki area.
     
Stirring up a panic mentality is not what the child-minding firms wish to do, however. During the course of the autumn they are prepared to hire even large numbers of new recruits, if need be.
      “Experience from the past years has taught us to react quickly and recruit new child carers at short notice, whenever a flu epidemic has hit the city”, Mauno notes.
      Recruiting child-minders has been considerably easier this autumn compared with previous years. For example, with Hoivanet - a new care firm that was recently launched in the capital area - a hundred people applied for the advertised positions.
      “We hired 30 of them”, says managing director Niina Kuurma.
      “The operating environment has changed in such a way that it is much easier to find child-minders these days”, Mona Jonsson adds.
     
If the potential for contracting swine flu frightens a worker, he or she does not have to accept the offered assignment, the companies affirm.
      “For example for pregnant women or child-minders belonging to any other risk group the possible swine flu gigs are not even going to be offered”, Jonsson says.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish Defence Forces confirm first swine flu case in garrison (10.8.2009)
  Health officials say WHO pandemic pronouncement does not alter Finland´s preparations for swine flu (12.6.2009)

See also:
  Researcher: Swine flu to land in Finland from south in the autumn (18.5.2009)

Links:
  H1N1 and 2009 flu pandemic (Wikipedia)
  Mannerheim League for Child Welfare (Mannerheimin Lastensuojeluliitto)
  Family Federation (Väestöliitto)

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