Experts call for all children’s healthcare fees to be scrapped

Children’s healthcare should be entirely free, two Finnish experts say, as parliament considers changes that would remove the day-surgery fee for under-18s but leave hospital stay charges in place. Yle reported that the government’s proposal would also raise some specialist-care fees for adults.

Under the proposal, children and young people would no longer pay for day surgery in specialist care. Such procedures can include dental treatment carried out under anaesthesia. The fee is currently charged by HUS and almost all wellbeing services counties.

Hospital stays would still be chargeable. The current daily fee is €71.50, and the proposal would raise it to €73.40. Fees would continue to be charged for up to seven treatment days per calendar year.

In primary care, the proposal would introduce individual appointment fees for physiotherapy for children and young people, while courses of physiotherapy would remain free.

Jari Petäjä, director of HUS’s service area for children’s and young people’s diseases, welcomed the proposed removal of the day-surgery fee but said all healthcare fees for minors should be abolished. HUS treats about one-third of Finland’s under-18 specialist-care patients.

Petäjä estimates that inpatient fees for children bring in about €2 million a year at HUS and roughly €6 million nationwide. He said the costs matter to middle-income families as well as those on low incomes: “€500 is a lot of money even for a middle-income family.”

Children’s ombudsman Elina Pekkarinen also questioned why all healthcare fees for minors are not being removed. The article reports that the child poverty rate in Finland has risen to 14 per cent, while more than 17 per cent of children are at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

The legislation is being considered by parliament and is scheduled to come into force next summer.