Top Finance Ministry official warns of looming health care crisis
Secretary of State Sailas speaks at Medical Convention
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A top official of the Ministry of Finance says that Finnish health care faces a crisis. Speaking at the annual Finnish Medical Convention on Wednesday, Secretary of State Raimo Sailas said that Finland has successfuly established a health care system that operates well at a fairly modest cost, but he warns that the present situation is not permanent.
Speaking on a panel at the ongoing Finnish Medical Convention in Helsinki on Wednesday, Sailas noted that the Parliament’s Future Committee has predicted that without great changes, health care will face difficulties within ten years. "We lack the ability to make decisions that research and information point to."
"The bill for municipal and service structure reform will not guarantee anything - it only opens up possibilities. However, decisions are in the hands of local authorities. For instance, public health clinics should aim at having a population base of 20,000. Lipponen’s government made such a decision in 2002, and hardly anything has happened since then", Sailas noted.
Special health care is even more difficult, and the service structure reform does not give any indication that costs would stay under control. Research suggests that health care districts should link up, but Savonlinna, for instance, still has its own hospital district, in an area with 60,000 inhabitants - one quarter of the number of people living in Espoo. It would seem that local authorities are doing all they can to avoid decisions on real core issues that would develop the service structure."
Sailas believes that nothing will change in health care. "Rationalisation has moved ahead incredibly slowly. Orthopaedic surgery should take place in three to five locations, and not 60. There are complaints of a shortage of money, but simple well-thought-out means are not embarked on."
Similar views were expressed before the panel discussion by Social Services Minister Liisa Hyssälä (Centre). "Project funding has not brought the results that we had hoped for", she said. "The service system must be reformed."
A four-year national health project was instituted to deal with problems in the sector, but an assessment which was completed last year indicates that the reforms that had been wished for never materialised.
An unwillingness to make changes leads to a shortage of labour, Hyssälä warned. "Personnel gravitate toward working communities where it is possible to develop the work itself. Health care employers succeed if they have modern development to offer."
The distribution of labour among personnel needs to change, said Kari Välimäki, the new Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
He hoped that this would succeed without a confrontation. For instance, doctors will only accept another doctor as an administrator.
Sailas emphasised that money will not solve the problem.
"The labour situation will be difficult by 2015. The shortage will not be solved by raising pay", Sailas pointed out.
"There are already plenty of doctors and nurses. It is the fault of the organisation, if people do not like their work."
Nor is technology the solution, if basic matters are not fixed.
"Information technology has a central role in processes, but it cannot be utilised if the processes are not changed", noted Veli-Pekka Saarnivaara, director-general of the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and innovation (Tekes). The agency is currently operating the Finnwell programme aimed at bringing more efficiency and new services into health care.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 11.1.2007 - TODAY |
 Top Finance Ministry official warns of looming health care crisis
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