---
title: "Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 117"
titleOriginal: "Panttivangiksi hyvinvointialueelle | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117"
episodeNumber: "117"
guest: "Tere Sammallahti"
datePublished: 2022-01-16
duration: "24:31"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhZgTxe9ec"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["finnish_economy_policy","leadership_governance"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. The publisher published no chapter marks for this episode, so none are listed here. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The guest was a candidate in the county elections held on 23 January 2022 when this was recorded on 16 January, so the episode is campaign material in his own words; the nursing profession and the parties he criticises are not represented in it."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/149-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti-neuvotte"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/
---
# Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 117

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

Tere Sammallahti is a candidate in the West Uusimaa county elections and begins by admitting that he does not like the reform at all: his first campaign theme would have been to cancel it, and since that is no longer politically available, the question becomes how to make a catastrophe tolerable. He calls his own position hostage-taking — if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. His example of the wrong metric is the nurse staffing ratio, and he opposes a county tax on empirical grounds. The uncomfortable section comes at the end: if services cannot be produced efficiently, something has to be cut.

## Running for something you would abolish

The framing is the episode's contribution. Sammallahti wanted the reform cancelled, accepts that it will not be, and concludes that abstaining hands the new institution to people who want it larger. Calling that hostage-taking is unusually candid for a candidate and it is an argument, not a complaint.

## The staffing ratio measures the wrong thing

A minimum number of nurses per resident is an input target. It is met by employing people, and it says nothing about whether anyone was cared for better — which is why it can be satisfied in full while the service deteriorates.

## The part candidates skip

If the efficiency does not materialise, something gets cut. Saying so during a campaign is the least comfortable passage in the episode and the reason it is worth keeping.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Panttivangiksi hyvinvointialueelle | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhZgTxe9ec).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/149-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti-neuvotte).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/yhteiskunta/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 117, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/, 2022-01-16. For quotes include episode 117 and timestamp.