A result of poor government funding for wellbeing services counties: massive job cuts at HUS will erode services and employees’ wellbeing

HUS terminates 280 employment contracts after cooperation negotiations. ICT services will be hit especially hard, losing about one fifth of their staff. Staff reductions will inevitably hurt specialised health care in Helsinki and Uusimaa.

The cooperation negotiations of HUS Group have ended, and hundreds of employees will lose their jobs. HUS terminates the contracts of 280 employees. All in all HUS will reduce workforce by 778 person-years.

For example, when current employees retire, new employees are not always hired, and part of fixed-term contracts will not be renewed.

The root cause for these dramatic staff reductions is that HUS has not received enough funding for its operations from the state. Wellbeing services counties around Finland have the same problem, comments JHL’s President Håkan Ekström.

– The counties get their funding directly from the state. The current government has adopted extreme austerity policy, even if it wrecks functioning services. Wellbeing services counties need the right to levy taxes in order to really be able to decide how their services are organised. Otherwise, the funding base and services will continue to crumble, and ordinary people and the employees will pay the price, says Ekström.

The services of HUS will suffer as a consequence of this wave of job cuts. Emergency care of Raseborg hospital moves to Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County. HUS ends almost all its operations in Raseborg, apart from psychiatry. In future the inhabitants will have to get other services from Lohja, Espoo or even further. The drive from Hanko to Meilahti hospital in Helsinki, for example, is almost two hours.

Staff reductions hit especially support services. In ICT services, for example, about 20% of employees will lose their jobs. HUS will also combine job duties so that the roles of healthcare logistician and hospital porter become obsolete. The new job description of multi-service employees includes tasks that range from assisting in catering services and working at cash desk to logistics tasks, transferring patients and transporting care supplies.

JHL’s chief union representatives Niina Koskela and Jenni Sorvari are disappointed because HUS does not understand the importance of support services. When the numbers of support services staff are reduced, nursing staff will have to do even more secretarial work and other non-nursing tasks, and that leaves less time for patients.

– Apparently the management of HUS has forgotten that work in support services requires long training. Now job duties are combined at a short notice and employees have to learn on the fly new tasks that involve much responsibility. Employees are already hard-pressed and constantly working overtime. These changes are going to further increase workloads and employees’ exhaustion, Koskela and Sorvari say.

More information:

Håkan Ekström, President of JHL, 040 828 2865

Chief Union Representatives Niina Koskela, 040 077 1843, and Jenni Sorvari, 040 775 8303