The Nordic region’s biggest private care company, Attendo, bought the addiction treatment firm from a state-subsidised foundation.
The large Nordic private care company Attendo has acquired A-Clinic (known in Finnish as A-klinikka), which specialises in substance abuse and addiction treatment.
A-Clinic provides its services to wellbeing services counties and the City of Helsinki. It employs 300 social and health professionals, and its substance abuse and addiction services provide 70,000 treatment days annually. It operates Finland’s only hospital specialising in the treatment of substance abuse and addiction problems, located in Espoo’s Leppävaara neighbourhood.
“At Attendo, we are interested in substance abuse services because we see a growing need for it and the fact that people are too often left without help,” Attendo Finland CEO Virpi Holmqvist said in a press release.
In 2022, Finland had Europe’s highest rate of drug-related deaths among young people.
State-funded foundation to concentrate on expert service
The A-Clinic Foundation is selling the firm, saying it plans to strengthen its role as a non-profit addictions expert. Most of the foundation’s funding comes from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the EU and various other foundations.
The companies expect that regulatory approval for the deal will be completed by this summer.
Attendo, founded by Swedish state-owned companies in 1985, went private in the 1990s, when it began operations in Denmark and Norway.
Allegations of neglect
In 2000, Attendo moved into Finland where has some 17,500 employees and runs 430 care and service homes catering to some 12,000 people.
In 2019, police investigated allegations of neglect at some Attendo facilities. The firm was threatened with 350,000 euros in fines if it did not improve staffing ratios to legally-mandated levels at a facility in Eastern Finland.
In 2023, Attendo fired a care worker who was violent towards elderly dementia patients at a group home in Oulu.
Police are now looking into the suspicious death of an elderly resident of Attendo’s Olarinpuisto nursing home in Espoo in late January.
