We propose a more equal treatment time guarantee

The Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY) is grateful for the opportunity to comment on the government’s proposal on acts to amend the Health Care Act and the act on healthcare for students in higher education. HYY considers student health care an important part of improving the status of health care for young people and especially students as well as a key element to help facilitate full-time studies in higher education. HYY believes that the draft includes significant downsides, such as dividing students into two groups through the age limit set at 23 years.

HYY considers restricting the treatment time guarantee through the remarkably low age limit of 23 years to be problematic. Allowing access to services only to those aged 23 years or under, as set out in the proposal, leaves 75% of students covered by the FSHS’s services outside the treatment time guarantee. HYY’s view is that all higher education students should remain covered by student healthcare services with the same treatment time guarantee the proposal currently puts forward for those aged 23 years or under. Only an extremely small group of students manage to complete a master’s degree by the age of 23. This means that students turning 23 years old would get changes to their healthcare services and care pathways in an already complex service network.

HYY believes that the proposal on the treatment time guarantee will divide students into two groups that will have an unequal status during higher education studies based solely on age. Students who need to complete their military service or who undertake voluntary military service also constitute a group that will be left in an unequal position compared to higher education students who move onto their studies directly from secondary education.

When making changes to the treatment time guarantee, particular attention should be paid to sufficiently fast access to treatment and removing obstacles to receiving treatment to ensure that unreasonable waiting times do not make students’ situation worse and further increase the need for treatment. From the perspective of higher education students, the main purpose of health care for higher education students is to facilitate a balanced, good student life that enables students to focus on their work, that is, studying. Prolonging students’ access to treatment only serves to protract treatment processes, which further endangers the ability to focus on studying full time. Weakening student health care also leads to longer graduation times. Indirectly prolonging study times by weakening student health care does not help us meet the needs of Finnish business life and society for high-level experts. HYY is worried that prioritising those under 23 years of age would result in delays in others’ access to treatment by creating an artificial age limit that completely ignores the fact that students’ need for treatment is not tied to their age.

HYY also believes that the constitutional problem raised by the Ministry of Justice is a key concern: according to Section 6, subsection 2, of the Constitution, ‘no one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person’.

HYY does not support the weakening of the treatment time guarantee. HYY believes that instead of restricting the various treatment time guarantees in student health care to 23 years of age, all higher education students should be covered by student health care throughout their higher education studies in accordance with the previous treatment time guarantee requirements.

Further information: Specialist in Social Policy Teemu Virtanen, teemu.virtanen@hyy.fi