Mental Health | The government cuts more than 450,000 euros from an organization that does mental health work: “We’re waiting with bated breath”

Preventative Over 450,000 euros in government grants will be cut next year from Mieli ry, which does mental health work, says the executive director of the organization Sari Aalto-Matturi.

Mieli ry maintains, among other things, a crisis hotline. It’s a 24/7 helpline that you can call if you’re feeling bad or have suicidal thoughts, for example. Crisis work’s share of the cuts is 160,000 euros.

Aalto-Matturi says that the organization will only make concrete decisions in December about how to adapt the activities. The surgeries may affect, for example, how often the crisis phone is answered.

“At the moment, the situation is that the crisis phone rings 400,000 times a year, and less than 90,000 are answered. The need for additional resources would therefore be huge, and now we are cutting back.”

According to Aalto-Matturi, calls to the crisis line have doubled in the last five years.

Government will cut grants to social and health organizations by 79.5 million euros next year, because it wants to curb the state’s indebtedness. The total amount of appropriations will decrease from approximately 384 million to 304 million euros.

Next year, the cuts will primarily be aimed at new grants, which will therefore be granted significantly less. Continuing grants, which Mieli ry’s grants are also about, will be cut by 18–21 million euros.

Cuts are also coming for 2026 and 2027, but their targeting is still a question mark. An investigation person has been appointed to investigate the matter.

In this year’s cuts, Mieli ry is one of the biggest losers. However, according to Aalto-Matturi, it can be expected that even more money will go from the organization in the coming years.

“This is only the first light swing. Now we wait with bated breath to see what direction the next few years will take.”

On the other hand, the government is not only cutting from organizations, because in its autumn budget negotiations, it decided to allocate 500,000 euros to mental health chat services through grants.

Aalto-Matturi is the chairman of the advisory board of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

The council is disappointed with how the decisions on the 2025 cuts were made. According to it, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has not taken into account the advisory board’s statements and has not had a discussion with the advisory board about the allocation of cuts, even though the advisory board’s task is to take a position on the strategic guidelines of aid operations.

Now, the surgeries were primarily done for general grants, which, according to Aalto-Matturi, is not a reasonable way to target surgeries.

“Cuts to the general allowance cause damage to basic operations. It would be good if the organizations could have planned the allocations of the cuts themselves by thinking about which activities need state grants the most, and which are the ones for which there would be an opportunity to receive other funding.”

Aalto-Matturi according to which the decision on subsidies is generally more politicized than before.

According to him, in the past the Social and Health Organizations Assistance Center (Stea) has prepared an assistance proposal as official work for the minister to decide.

“This year, the political working group decided in advance how the cuts will be implemented.”

The advisory board has asked the ministry for an explanation of “what changes have been made in the ministry to Stea’s role as an independent state aid authority and to the advisory board’s role as a participation structure”.