HS analysis|We need to get more doctors into the labor market. The current wage competition is hurting Finland’s public finances, writes Helsingin Sanomat’s political editor Veera Paananen.
Government has decided to add 71 new starting places to medical education. So far, there have been 755 starting places in Finland.
Minister of Science and Culture Sari Multala (kok) praised the decision as “historic”.
And yes, almost a ten percent increase in starting positions is a lot when it comes to doctors. Training doctors is expensive, and the decision made now will cost the state approximately 23 million euros.
Even the Medical Association, which for decades has been tight-lipped about increasing the starting places, commented positively on the decision. The government was also praised by the ranks of the opposition parties.
Thank you behind it is the fact that the shortage of doctors in the public sector is becoming unbearable.
There are different estimates of the number of missing doctors, but for example, according to a report by the Medical Association, several hundred doctors were missing from health centers alone in 2022. On top of this is the shortage of doctors in hospitals.
The number of doctors in Finland has not decreased. According to the Medical Association, in 2020 there were approximately 6,000 more doctors of working age in Finland than at the beginning of the 2000s.
The shortage is due to other reasons: the population is aging and constantly needs more services. Medicine has also developed, so there are more opportunities for different treatments.
The productivity of health centers is reduced by the fact that time is spent on writing numerous certificates and statements and not on immediate patient work. Patients’ troubles are bigger when health centers are mainly visited by people outside of working life. Doctors are also increasingly working part-time.
And then is something that politicians are less willing to discuss: the fact that the private sector absorbs doctors for itself through occupational health.
Minister of Social Affairs and Health Kaisa Juuso (ps) admitted In an interview with HS last year that there are doctors in Finland as such, but they have “flowed quite a lot” to the private sector.
However, the government has not presented any drastic measures to prevent the mass exodus of doctors to the private sector. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is preparing the so-called “good work program”. It aims to find ways to make the social security sector more attractive.
At the same time, however, the government will add 500 million euros to Kela compensation for private care in the years 2024–2027. The purpose is to break up treatment queues on the public side, but according to critics, the method does not work. Even after the higher Kela compensation, the price of a private doctor is still so high that it doesn’t really matter to people with low incomes.
Welfare areas also fear that when more and more money is directed to private companies, their chances of grabbing doctors for themselves will only increase. Researchers and, for example, the Medical Association have also warned about this.
Petteri Orpon The central mission of the (kok) government is to balance Finland’s public finances, and that is why it is careful not to increase appropriations. The Minister of Science and Culture Multala presented the decision on the starting location costing 23 million euros by stating that in the longer term it would cost more if doctors were not trained more.
He must be right about that. The shortage of doctors has driven the welfare regions captive to unhealthy wage competition. Doctors’ salaries have risen rapidly throughout the 2000s. Gig doctors have been able to earn monthly salaries of up to 10,000–20,000 euros as compensation for agreeing to go to remote areas to work.
The public side, i.e. welfare areas, must fulfill its statutory duties. If there are not enough own doctors, their workforce must be rented from the private sector. According to a report made by the municipal association, welfare areas spent more than 620 million euros on hired labor last year.
Increasing the starting positions by ten percent does not solve the problem of the mass flight of doctors to the private sector. It is still a good decision, because the less desirable employees there are in the labor market, the fiercer the wage competition becomes.
The unhealthy labor market position of doctors is hurting Finland’s public finances.
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