Millariikka Rytkönen, the chairperson at Tehy, accused HUS Group of reneging on its promise to minimise the effects on care staff. The group, she added, showed its inability to assess its operations as a whole, allowing its various departments to plan the organisational changes “half-blindly” while no one is taking responsibility for the entire organisation.

“If HUS implements these changes as planned in the co-operation procedure, this will send an unprecedented shock wave through the field,” she warned.

Päivi Törö, a coordinating chief shop steward for Tehy at HUS, told Helsingin Sanomat that she is confused by the scope of some decisions and urged the service provider to inform the staff members affected by the lay-offs, re-assignments between units, non-renewals of fixed-term contracts and changes in job descriptions.

“The workload of care staff will increase for the ones who’ll be left working because the work itself isn’t exactly going anywhere,” she said to the newspaper.

The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL) similarly reported that the care provider will be making “hundreds of employees” redundant in a decision it described as “irresponsible” and “unreasonable”. The redundancies will pose a threat to patient safety and place an unreasonable burden on the remaining staff, elaborated Håkan Ekström, the chairperson at JHL.

“It is impossible to even imagine that firing hundreds would not have an impact on care quality,” he said in a press release.

Helsingin Sanomat on Friday wrote that HUS Group will not make any announcements concerning the consultative negotiations until the final decisions have been made. Laura Arho, the director of communications at HUS, said in an e-mail to the newspaper that the decisions will be made at the end of the month in a way that prioritises the most urgent issues.

The consultative negotiations were launched to create cost savings of almost 510 million euros in 2025–2027.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT