Private healthcare company Mehiläinen has been charging Finnish prisons more for its services than agreed upon, Yle finds. Dr. Heikki Vartiainen, chief of medical services in Finland's prisons, says that cooperation with the healthcare giant is far from seamless.
"We can't start punishing inmates for being prisoners. We have to be prepared to help, as a doctor's ethics dictate," he says.
Prisons have trouble finding full-time doctors which leads them to contract out for medical care.
"These companies are mainly concerned with making a profit, not providing top quality health services," Vartiainen says.
He says he noticed discrepancies in healthcare service charges last spring. The firm – not specified by Vartiainen but which Yle's information claims is Mediverkko, which merged with Mehiläinen – included a guarantee surcharge which prisons had not agreed to, amounting to a more than 50 percent increase in billing.
"When I contacted them they came out and said they would pull their doctors out of the country's prisons if we did not pay the upped prices," he says. "But one of their senior bosses admitted that the contract we have stipulates no such price hike."
Eventually the company returned the overcharged amount to the Criminal Sanctions Agency.
