The coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on our finances in 2020.
The original budget showed a deficit of EUR 40 million in 2020 due to the non-recurring expenses of the Apotti deployment. The actual deficit, however, was considerably larger due to the additional expenses caused by the coronavirus response that were not covered by the government grant received. The Council decided that the accrued 77.2 million euro deficit will be made up by levying a surcharge from the member municipalities in proportion to their use of services. This brings the financial year’s net profit to a zero.
Binding net costs exceeded the budgeted amount by EUR 41.3 million.
The volume of operations in service production exceeded the budget by 5.4%. The increase is explained by the increase in electronic services by nearly 700% compared to 2019.
The number of individual patients treated, including joint emergency clinic health center patients, was 682,385, showing an increase of only 1,764 on the previous year. In specialist medical care, including outsourced services, we treated 612,202 individual patients, showing an increase of 4.2% on the previous year.
The coronavirus pandemic reduced demand for our services, and the comparable number of referrals for non-urgent care decreased by 7.7%. There were 315,281 referrals.
HUS member municipalities’ specialist medical care costs per resident were EUR 1,056 on average in 2020.
Operating costs
Operating costs exceeded the budgeted amount by 4.9%, or EUR 121 million. Operating costs increased by EUR 174 million, or more than 7.2%, on 2019.
The coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on our actual operating costs in various categories in 2020. Purchases of medical services exceeded the budget by EUR 54 million, labor hire by EUR 13 million, research and medical supplies by EUR 30 million and laboratory supplies by EUR 14 million. Personnel expenses exceeded the budgeted amount by EUR 15 million.
During 2020, HUS acquired functions from Eksote, Kymsote and Keusote, among others, and these additions increased our operating costs by about EUR 30 million during the year.