During the remainder of the year, the Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS) will improve its service unit network by replacing seven oral health or general and mental health service units. The changes primarily concern service units with only small numbers of visits where the FSHS has subcontracted services out to a partner.
Since its operations doubled, the FSHS has been monitoring the performance of its current service network. The two-year monitoring period has shown that students’ use of FSHS services differs from that originally planned. Due to factors such as remote studying and mobility habits, students don’t always restrict themselves to the FSHS service unit that’s closest to their educational institution. On top of this, 70% of students already make use of remote FSHS services.
To continue to ensure that units remain accessible by public transport, the FSHS has taken this into consideration when planning the service network changes. Kela, which is responsible for organising student healthcare, has approved the changes for 2023.
The changes to student healthcare service units will affect students at Jamk Institute of Bioeconomy, HAMK Riihimäki, Haaga-Helia Vierumäki, Xamk Kouvola, Xamk Kotka, Xamk Mikkeli, and KAMK (Pyhäjärvi). Combined, these campuses have some 11,000 students. The entire FSHS customer base consists of 290,000 students from all Finnish higher education institutions.