Comparing your native healthcare to the Finnish one. How the Finnish one does?
I would like to see more preventive medical services like blood test and such. I think the student healthcare services are great, but as soon as you are by yourself is hard to stay healthy if your work doesn’t covers you with a good healthcare service.
Here’s a Burana – come back in a couple days if you don’t feel better.
It’s crappy. Been for at least over a decade. Only now people are starting to notice.
“Go home, have a burana” is no longer a joke, but reality.
Compared to my country of origin (🇪🇪), my first appearance in Finland was better. Soon we should meet a doctor with a routine check of a child. At least the phone conversation was good. Visiting an emergency was without any stress, and the personnel were helpful and friendly.
**
I had some experience with emergencies when I lost the ability to breathe due to neural pain, and the emergency nurse told me that I was enough grown man to go to the hospital just walking because that was not far. When in the next pain attack, I stopped breathing, they decided instead to give me some medications because they believed that I was not joking. In the hospital, they followed my pains, and after 3-4 hours, when they were sure that I did not simulate and I was struggling (screaming and eating my pillow) – they gave me some opioids and, after 30 minutes, ordered me to get out 5:00 AM. And I was literally tripping walking home through the city. That was the biggest and best hospital in Estonia.
**
Several times from different medics, I was told that there is “no place for men on their premises” when we attended something according to a newborn consultation. For example, I was removed from a room; my spouse was forced to carry around and undress our son a week after delivering. But she was unable to do that easily because of her condition. That was the biggest and best women’s department of one of the hospitals in Tallinn. Very unpleasant experience.
**
Another interesting fact. The only painkiller provided to my partner during the first 18 h of labour was 500 Mg of paracetamol (pill). During the last four hours was finally given epidural anaesthesia. You see, there is an issue with painkillers in Estonia.
We have been to a lovely place anyway. Many of our friends at the same time were delivered without assistance because there were 3-4 nurses for 20-30 women giving birth on the same day. Men were banned from most hospitals due the covid, and if you came in the second part of the day, then no food for the next 12-18 h. There were some occasions when men ordered construction cranes for lift-ups to see their families from the other side of the window.
**
If you need to see a specialist in Estonia, you will wait in line for 6 to 12 months. My knee (ligament surgery) was operated 14 months after the trauma. Fortunately, that was an excellent doctor, and I could move “as before” after ~12 months from the day of the surgery. To get your referral to a specialist, you need to see your family doctor (look next story).
**
To see a family doctor (your first step in all treatments) – you should call them, and that process will take up to 2 days. My record was 120 calls to get someone on the other side of the phone to ask for a prescription.
**
Medicine in Estonia is excellent, but waiting lines are horrible. Often you will meet disgusting behaviour of personnel.
Interesting to hear from Finns. Is it close or far from the Finnish picture?
queues in public sector for non-urgent treatment starts to be rideculously long.
Not helped by our current government, with recent actions on potential strike of healthcare workers… As the government started planning “Forced labour law” (patient safety law) which would make striking illegal… And yes. Urgent cases would have been treated anyway.
The salary is quite low on healthcare, on top of long shifts, etc.etc. and recently increased prices of everything, I’m not surprised that the healthcare workers planned on striking. But. the sad fact is that Finland is also running in debt trying to keep everything running as everything currently is.
I agree that we cannot just slash the budgets of everything, lay off people and so on, but what we are currently doing is unsustainable.
I don’t have a plan on what we should be doing. Apart on reducing foreign aid at most… but we can’t cut that too much either.
Someone just has to find some solutions and preferrably fast.
Personally my experiences with medical care have been good ones. Being sick when younger; got taken care of well enough to the point that I don’t have complaints. My latest experience was when my shin got injured by an axe. I got taken to the hospital by accociates since the injury didn’t hurt that bad and it was quicker than ordering an ambulance. I waited in the hospital for like an hour and then got stiched up. The guys who did it were beginners/students but were friendly and did the job well enough. Most complaints I hear are from people who have to wait for months in line for bigger surgeries or checkups. Haven’t experiences those yet so I guess I don’t have any complaints personally.
Public healthcare is not good. My experiences of course may be just my bad luck, but I did not have a single positive case of using public services. Every time one must fight for things to start happening.
Taking a child for a checkup in the morning is a quest that takes at least an hour of queuing, and it is not fun with a sick child. My last ER journey involved waiting for 6 hours for a doctor to see me. I have never received an invite to any dental checks and when I tried booking one the reply was “do your teeth hurt? No? Then wait for our invite”. And this autumn I had +40C temperatures and again the answer was “have a fucking burana”. I had to fight over getting a blood test eventually and to find out I had pneumonia (keuhkokuume).
I do not know what to do, but this this definitely not a good experience on my side. For our child we just switched to private healthcare, because public just sucks.
Here in the UK we are going through huge problems with this and we throw vast amounts of money at the problem. Ageing population, diabetes, etc and the myth that it’s free. We need a big rethink but Brits don’t want to face up to the deep issues.
In countries where healthcare is socialized (free as in tax-paid) you need to scare doctors shitless. Don’t just go there saying you have 40°C, tell them you’ve got hallucinations. If you exaggerate everything they get worried and provide you the care you need, even if it’s just antibiotics.
Well, you are all alive so the burana seems to be working..
As an English guy living here I can’t really complain I’ve had the best care of my life in Finland and on 3 occasions probably had my life saved because of the excellent knowledge and forsight of the nurses and Doctors here.
11 comments
Comparing your native healthcare to the Finnish one. How the Finnish one does?
I would like to see more preventive medical services like blood test and such. I think the student healthcare services are great, but as soon as you are by yourself is hard to stay healthy if your work doesn’t covers you with a good healthcare service.
Here’s a Burana – come back in a couple days if you don’t feel better.
It’s crappy. Been for at least over a decade. Only now people are starting to notice.
“Go home, have a burana” is no longer a joke, but reality.
Compared to my country of origin (🇪🇪), my first appearance in Finland was better. Soon we should meet a doctor with a routine check of a child. At least the phone conversation was good. Visiting an emergency was without any stress, and the personnel were helpful and friendly.
**
I had some experience with emergencies when I lost the ability to breathe due to neural pain, and the emergency nurse told me that I was enough grown man to go to the hospital just walking because that was not far. When in the next pain attack, I stopped breathing, they decided instead to give me some medications because they believed that I was not joking. In the hospital, they followed my pains, and after 3-4 hours, when they were sure that I did not simulate and I was struggling (screaming and eating my pillow) – they gave me some opioids and, after 30 minutes, ordered me to get out 5:00 AM. And I was literally tripping walking home through the city. That was the biggest and best hospital in Estonia.
**
Several times from different medics, I was told that there is “no place for men on their premises” when we attended something according to a newborn consultation. For example, I was removed from a room; my spouse was forced to carry around and undress our son a week after delivering. But she was unable to do that easily because of her condition. That was the biggest and best women’s department of one of the hospitals in Tallinn. Very unpleasant experience.
**
Another interesting fact. The only painkiller provided to my partner during the first 18 h of labour was 500 Mg of paracetamol (pill). During the last four hours was finally given epidural anaesthesia. You see, there is an issue with painkillers in Estonia.
We have been to a lovely place anyway. Many of our friends at the same time were delivered without assistance because there were 3-4 nurses for 20-30 women giving birth on the same day. Men were banned from most hospitals due the covid, and if you came in the second part of the day, then no food for the next 12-18 h. There were some occasions when men ordered construction cranes for lift-ups to see their families from the other side of the window.
**
If you need to see a specialist in Estonia, you will wait in line for 6 to 12 months. My knee (ligament surgery) was operated 14 months after the trauma. Fortunately, that was an excellent doctor, and I could move “as before” after ~12 months from the day of the surgery. To get your referral to a specialist, you need to see your family doctor (look next story).
**
To see a family doctor (your first step in all treatments) – you should call them, and that process will take up to 2 days. My record was 120 calls to get someone on the other side of the phone to ask for a prescription.
**
Medicine in Estonia is excellent, but waiting lines are horrible. Often you will meet disgusting behaviour of personnel.
Interesting to hear from Finns. Is it close or far from the Finnish picture?
queues in public sector for non-urgent treatment starts to be rideculously long.
Not helped by our current government, with recent actions on potential strike of healthcare workers… As the government started planning “Forced labour law” (patient safety law) which would make striking illegal… And yes. Urgent cases would have been treated anyway.
The salary is quite low on healthcare, on top of long shifts, etc.etc. and recently increased prices of everything, I’m not surprised that the healthcare workers planned on striking. But. the sad fact is that Finland is also running in debt trying to keep everything running as everything currently is.
I agree that we cannot just slash the budgets of everything, lay off people and so on, but what we are currently doing is unsustainable.
I don’t have a plan on what we should be doing. Apart on reducing foreign aid at most… but we can’t cut that too much either.
Someone just has to find some solutions and preferrably fast.
Personally my experiences with medical care have been good ones. Being sick when younger; got taken care of well enough to the point that I don’t have complaints. My latest experience was when my shin got injured by an axe. I got taken to the hospital by accociates since the injury didn’t hurt that bad and it was quicker than ordering an ambulance. I waited in the hospital for like an hour and then got stiched up. The guys who did it were beginners/students but were friendly and did the job well enough. Most complaints I hear are from people who have to wait for months in line for bigger surgeries or checkups. Haven’t experiences those yet so I guess I don’t have any complaints personally.
Public healthcare is not good. My experiences of course may be just my bad luck, but I did not have a single positive case of using public services. Every time one must fight for things to start happening.
Taking a child for a checkup in the morning is a quest that takes at least an hour of queuing, and it is not fun with a sick child. My last ER journey involved waiting for 6 hours for a doctor to see me. I have never received an invite to any dental checks and when I tried booking one the reply was “do your teeth hurt? No? Then wait for our invite”. And this autumn I had +40C temperatures and again the answer was “have a fucking burana”. I had to fight over getting a blood test eventually and to find out I had pneumonia (keuhkokuume).
I do not know what to do, but this this definitely not a good experience on my side. For our child we just switched to private healthcare, because public just sucks.
Here in the UK we are going through huge problems with this and we throw vast amounts of money at the problem. Ageing population, diabetes, etc and the myth that it’s free. We need a big rethink but Brits don’t want to face up to the deep issues.
In countries where healthcare is socialized (free as in tax-paid) you need to scare doctors shitless. Don’t just go there saying you have 40°C, tell them you’ve got hallucinations. If you exaggerate everything they get worried and provide you the care you need, even if it’s just antibiotics.
Well, you are all alive so the burana seems to be working..
As an English guy living here I can’t really complain I’ve had the best care of my life in Finland and on 3 occasions probably had my life saved because of the excellent knowledge and forsight of the nurses and Doctors here.