Pirkanmaa shifts about 20 disability service staff to outpatient clinics amid reorganisation

Pirkanmaa welfare area, Pirha, will transfer about 20 disability services employees to outpatient care after redundancy negotiations, YLE reports. No immediate dismissals are planned. However, the welfare area's chief medical officer, Sirpa Rainesalo, warns that employment can be terminated if an employee refuses an offered post.

The staffing changes are part of a wider reorganisation. From the start of next year the outpatient clinic will focus on patients with more severe disabilities, while those with milder intellectual disabilities will be directed to primary health care. Pirha says the reform responds to a change in the disability services law and to a shortage of specialist doctors; several physician posts in disability services are currently vacant. Rainesalo says doctors appear more willing to treat these patients as part of health centre duties than in a standalone developmental disability unit.

Officials will now work on implementation details, including a joint workshop with the disability council, following the negotiations. The decision follows co-operation talks opened in September that warned the process could affect hundreds of staff and targeted eldercare and disability services when Pirha launched broader co-operation talks.