In the spring, Minister Lindén said that he considered the controversial patient safety law to be necessary. Now he has not given officials a mandate to prepare the government’s proposal.
Social- and the Ministry of Health does not promote the patient safety law demanded by the employer, under which nurses could be obliged to work during the Tehy and Super strikes. Head of department Fairy tale Koskela says that the Minister of Family and Basic Services does not Aki Lindén (sd) has given officials a mandate to prepare the board’s presentation for submission.
Fairy tale Koskela
“The reality is that the Patient Safety Act is not in force during these strikes. If the mandate were to come, we estimate that it would take at least a couple of weeks to bring the law change into effect,” says Koskela.
A four-day strike threatens the intensive care unit of the Turku University Central Hospital from Tuesday next week. In addition, unions gave a new warning on Monday about the four-day strike that threatens Oulu University Hospital’s intensive care from September 13.
The intensive care unit of the Kanta-Häme Central Hospital was supposed to be on strike for a day on Friday this week, but the Minister of Labor decided on Monday to postpone the strike by two weeks at the suggestion of the national conciliator.
Tehy and Super are not going to provide security work during the strikes. Hospital leaders have said that the strikes “clearly” threaten the lives of patients. The trade unions, on the other hand, stress that guaranteeing patient safety is the employer’s responsibility.
If all strikes are postponed by a decision of the Minister of Labor for a maximum of two weeks, according to Koskela, there might still be a theoretical possibility to enact the Patient Safety Act.
“But it must also be said that the law might not be very agile for such short industrial disputes. If job duties were to be imposed, then people would have to be reached, and there would be notifications and hearings.”
In the spring, Minister Lindén pushed the patient safety law in case of the nurses’ two-week industrial action. Despite the opposition of several government partners, Lindén considered it his duty as responsible minister to promote the law. A politically sensitive situation was triggered when Tehy and Super called off their strike.
STM according to the draft law being prepared in the spring, the regional administrative agency could assign a healthcare professional participating in industrial action to patient safety work in a situation where the life or health of patients is seriously endangered due to a staff shortage caused by industrial action. The order for patient safety work would be temporary and last at most one week at a time. The order could be renewed.
Aki Lindén
Satu Koskela does not want to assess why the enactment of the Patient Safety Act would have been necessary in the spring in Minister Lindén’s opinion, but it is not now. HS did not reach Lindén to comment on the matter on Monday morning.
STM last week gave the hospital districts a guidance letter on preparing for industrial action. There is nothing new in the guidance letter, but similar instructions were already given to the hospital districts in the spring, Koskela states.
“The key thing is that the hospital districts prepare to cooperate. In addition, they check the possibilities of acquiring services, purchasing services, service vouchers, utilizing private service production and recruiting additional personnel, as well as the way in which some activities can possibly be reduced or organized in a different way.”
Koskela emphasizes that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is not a party to labor market negotiations or precautionary measures.
“Regional administrative agencies and Valvira monitor and supervise patient safety, and their attention is of course focused on this, that they are ready to produce a situational picture for us.”
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