The opposition parties today submitted a joint petition to the government for parliamentary cooperation to secure the operating conditions of welfare areas. According to Virta, the challenge is not the government’s alone.
- Social Services and Finns do not need blame, but functional services, i.e. solutions from politicians and cross-party cooperation. Our politicians’ task is to ensure together that no Finn has to fear being left without care. This is not just the government’s challenge, this is our common task, Virta emphasizes.
Virta would place children and young people at the center of social services reform and the development of welfare areas. According to him, school nurses, child psychiatrists, curators and youth workers, for example, have long said that they see firsthand in their everyday lives how the system is creaking at its joints.
Sofia Virta
– Children and young people are the mirror through which we see how the system works. When a child or young person receives help in time, the whole of Finland is better off. The biggest savings come from effectiveness, not from surgeries that deepen problems. There are no extra professionals in the social welfare system to cut, Virta points out.
– We must listen to social welfare professionals and people struggling in their everyday lives. Their message is clear – services must not deteriorate, Virta says.
Virta emphasizes that no one waiting in the treatment queue asks what one party said to the other or who blamed whom. People are only interested in whether their mother gets a doctor’s appointment, whether their father gets surgery or whether the young person finds help in time.
– When primary healthcare professionals are stretched to the limit, it is reflected in every patient. Saving the social welfare system should not be made a party political issue, but our common duty is to ensure that these professionals can do their job so that everyone can trust that they will receive help when they need it, Virta says.
Virta appeals to the government and all parties: now is the time to bring together experts, welfare areas and the powers of Parliament.
– We must look Finns in the eye – both residents of small municipalities, patients in overcrowded health centres and those professionals who keep this society running. By working together, we can ensure that social welfare services continue to function. That is our duty to every Finn, Virta sums up.
