Læknablaðið - 01.04.1979, Qupperneq 90

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LÆKNABLAÐIÐ
8.1 Health promotion and disease prevention
— Health education (especially emphasized
in present five-year plan)
— Health examinations (screening of selec-
ted population groups)
e.g. working population — 1:4 examined
in 1975 the aged population — of
ali examinations
those for people above 65 years
of age counted for 9.8/1,000 doctor
contacts and 343/1,000 nurse con-
tacts
of all screening 16.2% required further
investigation
— Maternal and child health
— Infants below 1 year of age averaged
13 visits p.a.
— children 1—6 years of age averaged
2.3 visits p.a.
— pregnant mothers averaged 13.3 visits
to nurse and 3.3 visits to doctor
during pregnancy
—- Family planning services
— Preventive dental care
8.2 Primary Medical Care
— Health centers provided (1975) about
70% of primary medical care contacts
in the country and the rest delivered
through private (mostly group) practice.
In Finland, about 5% of doctors are in
private practice but many salaried hos-
pital doctors also have private practice
in the late afternoon and evenings. This
is mainly in the large cities in the south
of the eountry
-—• 6.0 million visits to doctor in health
center equals 1.24 visits per capita/p.a.
— In the same period there were 2.4 million
health center nurse contacts of which 1.3
million were home visits and these 68%
to people over 65 years of age.
— Héalth center beds in 1975 totaled 6.750
which is 1.44/1,000 inhabitants.
-— Of 2.2 million treatment days in health
center beds 1.5 million were for people
over 65 years of age.
— Bed occupancy rate 90%: cost per day
145 mk (approx. 35 U.S. dollars).
— Laboratory and X-ray serviees are pro-
vided but present five-year plans suggest
improved utilzation and decreasing total
number of examinations.
8.3 Rehabilitation
•—- Phvsiotherapists are avilable but natio-
nal shortage hampers services.
8.4 Ambulance services
— Long distances and rationalization of
services have led to rapid development
of ambulance services of which munici-
palities own about 40% and the rest are
private but utilized by municipalities and
cost to patients is also shared by in-
surance.
8.5 Dental health
— At present everyone under the age of 18
years is legible for free dental care but
lack of dentists in health centers has so
far prevented extension of dental ser-
vices to older age groups.
— Dental health includes prevention and
health education.
8.6 School health
— Health center staff participate in school
health but special school nurses are also
employed in larger schools.
— For students during school years 1—12
there were 2.2 million examinations in
1975 which means 2.7 examinations per
student.
-— In addition health care is provided for
students in institutions of higher leam-
ing although most university students
are served by a special student health
service.
8.7 Occupational health
— Larger industries have their own occu-
pational health services.
— Employers with fewer than 10 workers
are not required to arrange occupational
health services, but these are provided
by the health center.
— Smaller industries may also eontract
with health center for such services.
8.8 Environmental health
— Until now there is partly separate legis-
lation but the functions are under same
health board.
— Attempts are under way to integrate
environmental health services with the
rest of health center functions and this
is already happening in some municipaii-
ties.
— Municipalities are receiving state sub-
sidies only for salaries in this area and
not for function.
9. HEALTH CENTER STAFE
Starting with previous basic health service
personnel, the staff composition and total
numbers have been developed over the years.
Staff categories 1972 1973 1974 1975
Doctors 9J,3 1039 1161, 1301,
Dentists 997 1132 1276 1373
Community ÍPublic Health) nurses 2787 3165 31,70 3693
Nurses. other 1203 1677 2016 2303
Otlier health personnel 3087 1,555 5620 671,3
Total health personnel 8971 11568 1351,0 151,73
Other heálth center staff 21,73 5126 5083 6275
Totai health center staff 11444 16696 18623 21748
10. HEALTH CENTER COSTS
Basically, the municipalities support their
responsibility for primary care and health
center activity through municipal taxation. For
central government support in all areas the
country’s municipalities are divided into diffe-