Länsi Uusimaa’s health centers, counseling centers and dental clinics will only be decided later, but in the roughest preliminary finger exercise, only the largest centers would have offices.
Western Uusimaa in the welfare area, the first options for closing down health centers and other current social and health service offices have been sketched.
In the harshest option, only nine large centers would remain in the region. Small municipalities would lose their only health centers, counseling centers and dental clinics. Espoo would lose more than half of its own.
This is not even a show for politicians yet. This is evident from the appendices of the service strategy currently being worked on, which presents three possible scenarios for the future.
This year, the premises will not be touched yet.
Welfare area director Sanna Svahn says that in Western Uusimaa, at this stage, we will only think more carefully about how to develop services. When this work is finished, we can think about where. For example, it may be that a service grows so much that more space needs to be arranged for it.
“The service network starts from the need for services. In these current scenarios, we have really only looked at the matter from the point of view of where people live.”
Politicians can therefore discourage designers already, but the actual decisions about the premises will be made next year at the earliest.
Scenarios there are really three.
Scenario one would mean that we continue as we are now. The lease agreements for the current premises would be renewed and they would be repaired to the extent necessary. Building a new one would mainly mean increasing serviced housing in the biggest centers.
In scenario two, there are nine large health and family centers, but some regional health centers and other service points would be kept alongside them.
In the three scenario, only nine large centers would remain in the entire region. So new buildings would be built in them, and many leases of existing premises would be terminated elsewhere in the future.
At the same time, it is promised to introduce new mobile services. Professionals would therefore still visit small towns.
The welfare area is developing its digital services anyway, but in this tougher finger exercise remote transaction is emphasized.
In scenarios does not accurately list the locations of the giant centers or the long list of closures.
However, on the map that gives direction, five large centers are marked in the Espoo region, one in Nummela, one in Tammisaari, one in Kirkkonummi and one in Lohja.
Many small towns would be left without their own health center, and even in big cities there would be a lot of centralization. There are currently twelve health centers in Espoo alone.
The possible economic effects are just beginning to be calculated, as well as the effects on residents and the availability of employees.
Against centralization already in the draft it is said that it will arouse a lot of opposition. On the other hand, centralization is justified by population reasons: 81 percent of the region’s residents live in ten large regional centers.
All the welfare regions in Finland are currently preparing some kind of savings program, although everywhere it does not mean a clear list of abolitions. In western Uusimaa, easier savings activities have already been listed before.
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