HUSLAB chief executive Piia Aarnisalo said that the precise reasons for Wednesday’s slip-up are not yet known. However she said that she did not believe that a bonus paid out based on the number of samples technicians take, or haste had anything to do with the error.
On Thursday Helsinki University Hospital HUS said that a worker had used discarded needles to take blood samples from patients on Wednesday morning.
At the time it said that the use of dirty needles may have "theoretically" exposed patients to the risk of contracting infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B or C. It however downplayed the risk of infection, saying that it was "slight".
Bonuses for speedy service
The HUS lab pays its workers a so-called express bonus for good work performance or creditable projects. Aarnisalo admitted that workers also get a financial bonus for drawing a certain number of blood samples in a day.
"40 samples is a perfectly normal rate at which to draw samples in a full day. It isn’t really a question of somehow trying to get work done quickly in this way. It’s rather about encouraging normal, solid work performance. We also use customer service and quality metrics. The goal is to ensure that our patients get speedy service, not to whip or rush our employees," she explained.
Aarnisalo noted that the guidelines for taking patient samples are quite straightforward. The company is still conducting an investigation into the events that led up to the blunder and said that it had already managed to track down all but one of the 19 patients injected with the discarded needles.
Similar bonus paid in public and private sectors
According to Tehy, the Union for Health and Social Care Professionals, doctors in Finland have been paid operational bonuses for years.
Recently, some large employers have also begun to pay similar perks to other health care staff. For example, nurses may receive additional pay for activities such as writing prescriptions or performing certain dental care procedures.
Generally, such extras are small, but in some cases they may reach sizeable amounts, said Tehy lawyer Matias Nyman.
"Sometimes for example, nurses may receive hundreds of euros a month for writing prescriptions," Nyman added.
He pointed out that the bonus payments can be found in the public as well as the private sector. While Tehy had no precise information on how widespread the practice is, Nyman said that it was not very common.
