The Lapland town of Pello has for years co-operated with the town of Overtorneå in provision of medical care at the weekends. The towns take it in turns to provide medical coverage--one weekend Pello provides the doctos, the next he is located in Overtorneå.
That could change after a decision from the Lapland regional administration. In future the Swedish town of Overtorneå will not be allowed to provide to Pello residents medical services without Finnish speaking doctors—unless Pello becomes a bilingual municipality. Under Finland’s language law, that requires eight percent of the town’s inhabitants to have Swedish as a mother tongue.
The isolated town wants to continue the cross-border co-operation as a cost-effective way of providing services, and is willing to reward residents who officially change their language to Swedish.
The council will pay 50 euros to each taxpayer who does so, and has until the end of the year to secure the required number of Swedish speakers. They need 300 people to register as Swedish speaking to take the 3,744-strong town over the 8 percent threshold. If they fail they will be forced to set up their own, separate medical services or pay fines.
