Discharge from the hospital

/ Treatment and patient ombudspersons / Discharge from the hospital

Difficult-to-treat and/or dangerous patients are discharged from the hospital by decision of the treating physicians, most often in collaboration with the patient’s home county services. As for patients whose sentences have been waived, a proposal on their discharge is made to the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare (THL), which typically orders the patient to be monitored by his local county psychiatric services for six months at maximum before being fully discharged from the hospital. During the monitoring period the patient must regularly report to psychiatric services; the service then in turn reports the patient’s status to the hospital. If the patient’s mental well-being deteriorates during the monitoring period, the patient will be transferred back to the hospital for treatment. If there are no difficulties during the monitoring period the patient is discharged from the hospital, transferring responsibility for treatment to general outpatient care.

It should be noted that usually patients from Niuvanniemi Hospital are transferred to psychiatric hospitals of the welfare counties hospital districts, and only occasionally directly to outpatient care. It is generally in the interest of the patients to transfer them to their local hospital services, closer to the network and community where they need to manage during outpatient care. Patients transferring directly to outpatient care from the hospital are generally placed in rehabilitation homes or private service homes in their own municipalities. Patients often spend brief evaluation periods at the receiving services before the final decisions on the transfer is made.

Forensic examinees are mainly transferred for the examination from prison, where they also return after the examination, if not receiving a treatment order. Examinees arriving from somewhere other than prison return to their original location after the examination; homeless persons will be provided accommodation in their domicile.