HUS Emergency Departments open on May Day

Patients in need of urgent care are primarily treated at a health center’s emergency services. If your local health center is closed for May Day and your issue cannot wait until it is open again, please call the Medical Helpline at the number 116117. The number is free of charge. Calls are taken by a nurse who gives you recommendations on how to proceed based on your treatment needs. 

The nurse will assess your treatment needs and urgency. If there is reason to go to an emergency department, the Medical Helpline will advise you where to go. If the urgent health issue can be solved with self-treatment, we will instruct you over the phone. 

May Day sees an increase in the number of patients with medical issues related to substance abuse both at the pediatric and adult emergency departments. People seek urgent treatment for overdoses, accidents, and injuries, among other things. The holiday also heightens mental health problems caused by loneliness.

In an emergency situation, you can also go directly to an emergency department

The most common symptoms that you should always have looked at in an emergency department: 

• chest pain
• stroke symptoms, such as sudden flaccidity or incapacity of a limb or speech difficulties
• mental health problems requiring urgent treatment
• profuse bleeding (e.g., vomiting blood, large bleeding wound)
• major injuries and fractured bones
• sudden severe headache
• difficulty breathing
• sudden onset of severe or worsening abdominal pain
• fever in a newborn
• convulsive child

In life-threatening situations, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, unconsciousness, stroke symptoms, acute seizure, call the general emergency number 112.