Patient records found at abandoned rehabilitation centre in Finland

Yle reported that patient records were found last year at the former Ylinen rehabilitation centre in Ylöjärvi, even though the Pirkanmaa wellbeing services county had said it destroyed the remaining documents in 2021.

The new owner of the property, entrepreneur Suvi Rajala, said the papers included names, personal identity codes and patient records. Some documents also contained information about staff.

Rajala found the documents during the first months after purchasing the former rehabilitation centre from the wellbeing services county last year. She reported them to the county and destroyed them appropriately.

The papers were found in several buildings. Rajala said she had seen around three or four documents containing patient information. She also found piles of postcards belonging to residents and staff, with names and addresses, as well as other clearly personal belongings.

Names of rehabilitation centre residents were still taped to cupboards and light switches. Medicines were also found on the property.

“Quite a lot of material has been found here that should not be here,” Rajala said.

The former rehabilitation centre had stood empty for about 10 years before Rajala bought it. Its operations ended in 2015, when services for people with intellectual disabilities moved to the Pitkäniemi area in Nokia.

Ylinen had served as a rehabilitation centre and home for people with intellectual disabilities for decades. After it closed, the property was left to deteriorate and suffered vandalism and theft.

The site covers about 18 hectares and contains roughly 20 buildings. Rajala said she had inspected the property extensively during the past year but could not be certain that no documents containing personal information remained.

She said the cleaning should have been carried out properly in one operation, although she understood that human errors could occur.

“Cleaning such a large area must have been quite an impossible task,” Rajala said.

Minna Kuusela, the Pirkanmaa wellbeing services county’s director responsible for social welfare, learned about the documents and other belongings only after Yle contacted her. Disability services are the responsibility of the county’s social welfare services.

Kuusela suspected that information had failed to move within the organisation. She said she did not know why the information had not reached her.

“It is unclear who has been in contact with whom and who has handled the matter on our behalf. But naturally, we will investigate it. I only became aware of this matter this morning,” Kuusela said.

The wellbeing services county could not explain how papers were still found at the property after the 2021 discovery. Yle also contacted the county’s property department and the office of its data protection officer, but neither could comment in detail.

Kuusela said the case was very regrettable and that the information should have reached the county’s data protection team and the relevant authorities.

The discovery met the criteria for a data protection violation. The wellbeing services county should have reported the findings to the Data Protection Ombudsman.

“We take this seriously and will of course investigate everything that can be established. It is in the customers’ interests that the matter is investigated and that such incidents do not happen again,” Kuusela said.