Paavo Koistinen, who chairs the national association that represents the interests of patients, argues that standard rules for patient safety should apply.

"Generally when there is talk of patient safety, it is said that the management of a medical unit has the primary responsibility,” Koistinen pointed out in a YLE TV1 discussion on Thursday evening.

The Finnish Medical Association's Executive Director, Heikki Pälve, in turn expressed the view that hospital management has to have faith in the credentials of physicians certified by Valvira.

"The director of a unit has the responsibility to supervise his or her own staff. But as a matter of principle, he or she should be able to trust that the individual has Valvira certification, that this person really is a doctor," said Pälve.

For her part, Valvira's Director General, Marja-Liisa Partanen, took the stand that the people posing as doctors are primarily responsible for their own actions.

"In principle, this is a question of actions and the blame of course lies with the bogus doctors themselves, since they initiated it. They acquired legal approval from the authorities with forged documents," Partanen noted.