The Centre Party re-entered government despite losing a lot of support at the last election partly to ensure that their cherished regional administrative reform would be enacted, but that goal now looks to be in trouble.
To recap, this is the model by which health and social care services are organised under 18 regional authorities, rather than municipalities as is currently the case. The current model has no obligation to open up services to private providers, as the last government’s did, but retains the regional organisation that was regarded as inefficient by experts.
The 18 bodies are expected to be dominated by Centre Party politicians, as the party is strong in rural areas and hopes to do well in elections to these authorities.
However Iltalehti reports on Wednesday that the project is now in trouble.
Savonlinna municipality has decided that it will organise its ‘sote’ services with North Savo, rather than South Savo as envisaged under the planned reforms. That would leave South Savo’s regional authority with a much smaller population, drastically reducing the hoped-for efficiency savings.
That prompted two Centre Party ministers, Jari Leppä and Hanna Kosonen, to send a letter to Savonlinna outlining their concerns for the wider reform.
Decision-makers in the town were unmoved: they felt that was a price worth paying to preserve their current hospital and keep the highly-paid jobs associated with it in their town.
This is the core of the problem with ‘sote’ reform. Local authorities want to keep their services as local as possible, but efficiency savings by and large come when hospitals and health centres are brought together.
Solving that puzzle has occupied several governments in a row in Finland, as demographic changes make the task ever-more urgent.
Lifers with no parole?
Finland has a famously lenient criminal justice system, with an emphasis on rehabilitation for even those guilty of the most horrific crimes.
There are currently around 200 prisoners serving life sentences in Finnish jails, with the average ‘lifer’ getting out after 14 and a half years.
They are eligible for parole after 12 years and can be freed for trial periods to test their ability to handle the outside world.
But what to do with those prisoners incapable of reform? That’s the question Helsingin Sanomat asks on Wednesday, publishing an extensive feature focusing on Michael Maria Penttilä, a Helsinki man known as the ‘serial strangler’ and the only Finnish murderer defined by the FBI as a serial killer.
He has strangled three women and one 12-year-old girl since his first killing in 1983, and is regarded as being unable to control his urges.
He is eligible for parole in 2030 for his latest killing, which occurred in 2018 and was the first to be regarded by the courts as murder rather than manslaughter.
HS interviews Hannu Lauerma, Chief Psychiatrist at the Psychiatric Hospital for Prisoners, and he says there are at least five prisoners in Finland so dangerous that they should not be released.
He does not however support a ‘life means life’ approach, where courts would designate some lifers as never to be released. Instead he says the situation should be assessed every few years to take account of changes in prisoners’ mental states.
HJK horror show
Finland’s biggest football club HJK Helsinki have had a terrible season. They did not qualify for European competition next year, they were out of the title race early in the autumn and their big budget players under-performed.
In response the club is organising a live chat online on Wednesday, in which the club’s senior figures will answer questions from fans about their under-performance.
Ilta-Sanomat publishes an opinion piece ahead of that forum in which Juha Kanerva outlines why he thinks the blame lies with former Crystal Palace midfielder and current HJK CEO Aki Riihilahti.
Kanerva argues that Riihilahti is not regarded as a collaborative figure at HJK and has a say in all decisions affecting the club. That reduces the freedom afforded his coaching staff and has a detrimental effect on coaching.
It remains to be seen whether that issue will be addressed in the live chat, but fans of rival clubs will no doubt enjoy observing the post-mortem.
