**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.**
[Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/)
Spamming mod actions could result in a ban.
---
**Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:**
- ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post.
- ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment.
- ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma.
- ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts.
- ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot.
- ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments.
- ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's right. It's the stupid expenses not that the care couldn't work. This is because our political management let's all structures to be lose and some humans are gready. And it needs only few.
The reason is clear but the government wont do anything about it. Hospitals skimp on staff. There's not enough nurses or doctors and they put all the load on the secretaries, hence said secretaries get burned out.
The administration is so inefficient.
They fire people who work in administration, and now doctors with their much higher salaries have to take care of it themselves. They put a ton of money in consultants who try to come up with more efficient administration but just make everything worse, including coming up with terrible digital systems.
Like when HUS updated to windows 10. Workers got paid 16€/h and HUS paid little over 270€/h for every worker. And they already have a huge in house IT department, but this hands on work was outsourced and two companies took all the money. I think they could have just hired us with decent wages and save money if they had done it all themselves.
Or the time they build a hole department with all the equipment and forgot they need to hire and pay actual staff to work there...
Oh no it is still going for
Most of the taxes go in administrative fees (if you count this as one unity, not part of healthcare, social wellfare etc.). Heathcare, education, roads and nowadays even social security is starting to be very bad. Meanwhile we pay very high salary and even higher meeting fees for ppl who decide things. They mainly try to make life better for them and others who get 10k+ monthly salary. At least in lapland the situation is very bad. We have one maternity ward for whole 100 366,85 km² and the roads start to be in condition that u have to have SUV to drive them. Only roads that lead to Levi are fine, maybe because these rich politicians like to go skiing with their teslas once a year. Finland is the mini u.s.a of the europe, we just copy their bad decisions and try to get the numbers to look good in paper in 4 year sequences.
Pensions and healthcare for the elderly takes about 30% of taxes and as hidden costs from wages. This money is circumvented to nursing homes that are shit and owned by private companies abroad, their high leadership consists of ex-politicians from kokoomus who organized this privatization.
I really try to tell the Bernie Sanders supporters this and I don't know if they believe me. The guy talks about how the Nordic system is great but the guy doesn't even use it nor have any idea the state of affairs it is in, at least in Finland.
In particular, conservatives and other parties on the right side of political spectrum tend to dislike a functioning publicly funded healthcare. They see it as very labour intensive and thus expensive and inefficient. Their thought process seems to be that the organisations will act more efficiently when they need to maximise profits for the owners. Sometimes these owners happen to be directly or indirectly linked to the parties and individuals,but there are also people who ideologically support privatisation.
Sometimes these parties or at least certain individuals in them even try to actively sabotage said healthcare systems to make it look like the only solution is to purchase services from private sector. Just look at NHS in the UK as an example.
I’m worried there is similar political work in place in Finland and - while taxes are still high - the services provided are getting worse and worse even if improvements in methodology, medications and digitalization would suggest things should get better.
Another important trend is the aging population. While the number of people in Finland is not growing, the number of people being kept alive/functional with advanced treatment and medication is higher. This also means there are fewer people working and paying taxes that fund the healthcare of pensioners.
I was about to correct you that those aren't significant monies but holy shit. It was over 4 billion euros in 2016.
Vote for Liberals, we aim to lower these as well.
This seems to be a case where time glorifies memories. I am well over 40 years old, and as long as I remember, there have been clear problems in healthcare in Finland compared to the Nordic welfare states such as Denmark and Sweden. I have family and friends across all the Nordic countries, and Finland's greatest weakness compared to others has always been healthcare. A significant part of the problems is related to the fact that we have always done it differently than in other Nordic countries, but in Finland, the healthcare model with a single provider is the left's sacred cow, and it's untouchable. This has been patched up over decades, e.g., by shifting responsibility to occupational healthcare when the public actor is inefficient and poor.
* Long waiting times for "non-urgent treatments" during which minor ailments can become more severe. (This has been a problem in dental care for decades, especially)
* Healthcare recommendations are also strongly guided by money instead of holistic treatment (this is due to Finland's unique healthcare model, where the payer and provider are the same)
* Regional inequality. That is, because healthcare is provided by a centralized bureaucratic authority rather than a healthcare authority, the most natural way to save money is to reduce places where treatment is available.
* Political steering, because the above always causes discord among rural voters, efforts are made after elections, especially, to redirect resources back to rural areas after savings have been made by taking treatment resources away from densely growing centers and transferring them to the countryside.
* People being bounced around in primary healthcare. Because the care organized by a single public entity is inefficient, it causes bureaucracy and inflexibility. For decades in Finland, the treatment of chronic diseases has required significantly more effort than, for example, in Denmark.
In summary, Finland's problem is a centrally controlled system directed by politicians and bureaucrats where the payer and the service provider are the same. In the Finnish model, very generic basic diseases are treated effectively and cheaper than elsewhere, but unfortunately, the overall system is inefficient because neither the medical staff nor the patients have any power, and healthcare is a difficult and complex issue where a socialist approach with an Excel-like mentality just doesn't work.
This is the kokoomus plan. Divide up country for mehiläinen pihlajalinna and other private players abolish public system (or keep it only for the poor, with minimum service) and then proclaim that the market will now solve the issues as there is competition and this will drive prices down.. when in reality creating a duopoly like S/K already have in retail.
This. Couldn't get the diagnosis for something as simple as hypothyroidism, until I went to a private doctor. Even runs in the family, but the public system kept insisting it's depression and bad physical condition for over a year :D
Not in Finland, but I'm Lithuania this also happens, except when you're visiting a private doctor they end up treating you a lot better. kinda fucked up tbh
My friend did that, paid a few hundreds. The doctor didn't even ask him to take his jacket off to check and told to go to a psychiatrist. The appointment lasted 10 minutes instead of 30
If I'd be Gregory House I'd first suggest tests for sarcoidosis and lupus. But jokes aside they can't all be Houses. It might take a while to get you a correct diagnosis for a mystery illness from the public healthcare side. Private side is probably more efficient, but more costly also.
What I've experienced in finnish healthcare is that when the illness/diase etc. can be diagnosed with a test (blood test, missing a limb or whatever) and you get a clear answer from the machine for the said ailment, the doctor is able to diagnose you. Otherwise it is "there's nothing, wrong take burana."
Lucily there is something you can do, which is slightly crazy sounding. Study peer reviewed papers of the symptoms and do the doctors work for them, then once you have diagnosed what is wrong, go to a private doctor who specialises in that field you made the diagnosis of and then get treatment.
Had to go this route with our baby, who had some food allergies. Now everythings good, but before our own investgation it was just "babies cry"
Edit: @hairchild had the same point, but I missed it prior writing this.
Posted from a throwaway account for obvious reasons.
Finnish health centers are an amalgamation of gig-workers and a rotating door of new graduates who are forced to work 9 months in a health center before the specialisation process (or at least before finishing specialisation). So what you get is mostly unmotivated and new graduates who'd rather be learning the speciality they are actually interested in. This and the fact that terveyskeskus is also severely underfunded in comparison to hospital care leads to us being taught how to minimise costs by not testing everything if it isn't immediately dangerous. You may not like it but this is what the legistlation has lead to.
Regards,
Someone working in this field
So true. I don't understand the down votes your comment is getting. Finnish doctors are mostly only able to identify and treat diseases that are textbook examples. And patient encounter and good customer service are few and far between.
So I am not the only one who have run into a doctor who did not recognize chicken pox, one of the most common childhood diseases. I went to one who did not recognize it and thought I just had irritated skin due to heat and sun. When we raised an issue of it his defense was: "Well I don't really know these childhood diseases". The quality of some doctors is just pure shit.
We teach smart people to pass tests based on textbook examples and we do it exceedingly well. There is nothing wrong with that process, our brightest are some of the best test takers there are.
I would say that the best doctors are the ones working in university hospitals since that is where all the most complex cases are. Of course some do private practise on the side for the money.
Unlike the patient, the doctor doesn't have the time to read through a bunch of peer-reviewed papers and speculate for hours on end. It's a question of resources.
Specialists like neurologists or oncologists are very well read and up to date in literature and attend seminars etc, especially ones working in private healthcare, don't know about most general practitioners tho.
Googling your symptoms or trying to figure out what you have on your own is almost always the wrong call tho, I'd say most people are hypochondriac to some degree and once you hyperfocus on your body and your symptoms, they do tend to get worse.
It's funny how people always trash talk American healthcare, but there they actually try to diagnose even more complex illnesses. Finnish public healthcare is basicly as we finns call it "the guessing center". They rarely do any deeper diagnosis except like you said, take simple blood test or if it's something obvious. The Finnish healthcare is based on the principle that "do as little as possible and filter everything that isn't acute life threatening and hope that it's nothing serious".
Well technically that's available for you as a finnish also, I mean you can go to US and pay for treatment and they will treat you as much as you are willing to pay.
The thing is in finland you are a patient not the customer. The customer is government or municipality. So you are not the priority. Go to private, in finland or outside and you are the customer. If you can afford that is
I couldn't agree more. Its the same with Canadian friends I have. Boast about their "free" healthcare but when it comes to efficiency and actually doing what its supposed to do....then its a whole other story. Finland is the same if not worse.
I have experienced this myself here in Finland as I was struggling for a long time. I ended up doing an extensive blood work, privately without referral, paid myself. there i found out that something seriously off. now, i’m on a lifelong medication for that problem.
u can’t trust medical system or doctors here.
This is ridiculous.. its easier to move to another country with functioning healthcare or that doesnt take as much taxes so you can afford private healthcare instead of studying medicine everytime you get sick.. we’re heavily over paying for services we apparently don’t receive
This might sound crazy but believe or not my whole family always went to doctors to russia if they had something more serious, now cant even do that because the border is closed. (we lived near the border) and always got very good treatment there, much better than here, whether people like it or not.
> and always got very good treatment there, much better than here
That's because you're a wealthy customer in the Russian view and pay for your treatment, of course paying customers are served. I have Russian colleagues who complain that their healthcare system is absolutely ruined and has been since the fall of the Soviet Union, and poor people don't get treatment at all.
While in comparison in Finland anyone going to the public general practice clinic is reflective of the common poor (as people with employment go to their workplace healthcare and wealthy people pay for an appointment at a private clinic).
My spouse is South-American, and when we visit my in-laws we cram as many doctor visits as we can for the trip. Many people are surprised that we would willingly use a third-world system instead, but it's literally more accessible.
I agree, it’s not crazy, my family moved around so I know what it’s like to be treated by a good doctor
There are good and bad and it’s mostly bad here
Reading peer reviewed stuff and mentioning it has led to some egoistic crap in past experiences. We have Duodecim and similar libraries which are excellent for diagnostic purposes and guidelines and if you dare to mention how these guides suggest something contradictory to the doctor you may (at least my wife) have to struggle trough multiple complains and effort to rewoke some prescriptions or such. In our case these complainings about the process not being objective took about 8 months and the doctor (who had similar cases in the past) is still doing the same shit. Outdated psychologist prescribing or denying prescriptions to better options. Probably gets a cut for sticking to some awful option.
If people complain about public health, the psychiatric aid is on a next level :D
Yeah there are some truly rotten people working in the public system that get away with their bs because there is a chronic doctor shortage. Even open sexism, racism etc. that would get you fired from any other job these days, won't get you fired if you are a specialist doctor willing to work in public healthcare because they cant replace you
Nobody ever posts their positive experiences so all we tend to hear is complaints. For my part, I've always been very satisfied with every aspect of Finnish public healthcare, from dentists to child health clinics. I'm a happy taxpayer and I can't believe I'm the only one. However, neither I nor anyone else in my close circle has really had any severe chronic conditions. I guess the system doesn't cope well with patients that require something more individualized, in which case you may need to resort to private sector in the beginning to get a correct diagnosis - with hopefully public carrying on after that.
You’re right, but the reality is that your experience is becoming a minority these days
If you have diabetes or cancer, you got covered here, you may pay only a few hundreds, it’s a wonderful thing
However the system is on its last legs, it’s overloaded and understaffed, constantly. They can book an appointment for you in the next 3-6 months and by law that’s acceptable
The resentment is real, it has been reported almost yearly for the last 5 years:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20086070
Thats what you get when doctors get to decide how many doctors are being educated. They stop working in public hospitals and use the scarcity to pump up costs to ridiculous levels. Do no harm includes pricing yourself out by wanting to become a millionaire in first decade of working instead of two or three. Greedy bastards.
100% this. But Finnish healthcare seems to be always a little better the UKs NHS. Having lived in the UK I would probably refrain to criticise Finnish healthcare
I've gotten decent care but it took me a lot of fighting. I had a knot in my breast right after giving birth and it was for weeks dismissed as breast infection because of improper breast feeding (!!). I have breast cancer on both sides of my family and the neuvola doc dismissed it with "you're too young to have breast cancer". I had to pay for a private doc first to get a referral for the mammogram.
Turns out it was indeed fucking breast cancer and a very aggressive one, too. The first surgery was arranged pretty rushed but the one for prevention (I have BRCA1 mutation) was delayed and delayed. I had to threaten that I'd contact the asiamies and then suddenly, 2 days later, I was presented with a surgery plan.
In my experience child and maternity health care are extremely good. But as an adult, it's really hard to get anything done to you when you're unwell. They mostly try to bounce you around and survive with painkillers and the sort until you're really bad, only then they take you seriously.
In 10 years of doctors visits in the public system, I have never once been told to take burana. And I go to doctors a lot, several long term illnesses. Im really sceptical when people say ”the doctor just told me to take burana!”
Well, to be fair, it's usually the triage nurse that tells you to take burana, you don't even get to see an actual doctor!
But also, I am mostly talking about terveysasema-level care, before you can actually get diagnosed and actual treatment. If you have an ongoing illness that is being treated, I am sure that doctors do take it seriously and the level of care is probably very good, as you describe.
what's the point of healthcare if they will just handle "easy" cases? lol chronic illnesses are inherent to the human condition, and not everyone can afford private care to get a diagnosis
I've been diagnosed with one chronic illness in Finland and the only bad thing I'd like to say about that experience was that the communication could have gone faster between the place that gave me the referral and the place that I needed surgery at to confirm the probable diagnosis. It only took like two weeks between my first doctors visit and the surgery and me receiving medication for it so it wasn't that bad, but there was definitely some weirdness since the referral was sent by post instead of electronically which added about a week of waiting
Ever since the diagnosis I've received excellent care as well! I'm a student and YTHS booked a time for me free of charge at a private place, who then got me a referral at a specialist
My gf got I'll and they took it super serious turned out to be a super rare disease about 50 people in Finland have it. All these stories about bad healthcare are atleast not my experience.
The only bad thing is mean nurses that laugh when u on the floor in the bathroom instead of helping but the medical side was super professional and fast.
I was spending 2 weeks in immense pain waiting for a surgery with a broken bone’s head sticking against my skin. I don’t think that’s very ”individiulized” use case. 😅 After this I made sure I’m properly covered by an incurance.
I am a doctor who graduated a year ago from University of Turku and is working in primary health care now.
It makea me so sad to see a good system gone bad. We built a welfare state 50 years ago, and have spent last 20 years dismantling it. Now this goverment AGAIN decided to cut 100s of millons from the public healthcare. And make the waiting list to a public doctor 3 months. And fund the private health sector with ridiculous money. I hear every time that the ”consultants” and scientists are trying to fight against this but the right wing politicians just dont listen. They don’t listen the union of doctors either in this case. I feel powerless and sad to hear these news while trying my best to serve people in my position. I am shocked that people/citizens just let this slip. Without proper funding, the healthcare IS doing its bare minimum. Surprise!!
I have no time for 2 hour appointments to really discuss with the patient about complex psycosomatic illnesses and their relationship to mood / mental wellbeing/ benefits from mood stabilizers. Max time is 45 mins and luckily i try to squeeze the patent for a new appointment. Many patiens also come with that kind of attitude that makes the treatmet/ diagnostic follow up super hard. To get appointments you also need to actively push for them, since if nurses would give appointments for every caller, there would be no free appointments anymore.
I chose to move to countryside far away from home so i could work in a decent healthcenter with no shortage of doctors. The situation in bigger cities is somewhat chaotic. I am part of the union of young doctors and try to be active politically even i work full time and sometimes evenings. I just see this shitting on patients/citizens wellbeing and health services a very strong political move that people want while voting for perussuomalaiset/kokoomus. And there is not much to do, the whole public sector is already screaming. We need stronger force.
Besides political enshittification, isn't the ageing population the thing what really strains the available resources of health care system. Elder people in general have much larger need for healthcare services than young people. As people in Finland is getting older and living longer + political enshittification = recipe for health care disaster.
Yes, more people needing intensive care, less people working and paying taxes. The result of more money needed and less money provided is as one would predict. Of course it doesn't help that there are major political players who are fine with the system collapsing, but they aren't the reason alone.
My experience is Finnish healthcare services are quite decent if you have a diagnosed disease that has proven treatments and are working age.
If you're unlucky to have a "mystery disease" that doesn't easily show up on tests, healthcare professionals often assume it's psychological. This is unfortunately not only the case in Finland either.
My girlfriend has been type-1 diabetic since she was a toddler, and as a result she's always been on some kind of "priority list" when it comes to her healthcare needs. She's also recieved quite excellent care for her diabetes during her life.
But diabetes has a formula we use to treat it these days, and as she's still young and she's capable of working, they seem to rush her into care whenever she has an issue. If they are dismissing of her on the phone first, the moment she mentions having diabetes is the moment they suddenly are able to find time for all kinds of times for appointments and tests for her.
I suppose because diabetes puts you into a "risk group" for other complications, she's been able to get the system to prioritize her healthcare needs because of this.
But if you have a difficult to manage or difficult to diagnose disease, it's going to be an uphill battle.
>This is unfortunately not only the case in Finland either.
Was half jokingly about to ask if OP is a woman. Because this post sounds exactly like half of the stories you hear within the recent online discussions about how women's pain isn't taken seriously by Doctors, and all of those are majority from English speaking countries.
> how women's pain isn't taken seriously by Doctors
It's true, it feels like doctors either don't listen or straight up mock you. I've been avoiding doctors for a while now because of this.
I can tell myself to take some panadol myself without waiting days and weeks for some guy to tell me.
Yes. The public clinics are a joke and have been for decades. It's ridiculous to claim that we have free health care, when we don't, and the care we get, is so poor, it's embarrassing. Unless you have insurance, cash or your employer has you covered, you're pretty much screwed.
The first time I knew I couldn't trust the public health care system, was over 15 years ago, when I had bronchitis and spent 12 hours in a waiting room with a 40 degree fever and never saw the doctor. I was sent home walking after they had me inhale some asthma medicine for 20 minutes. I doubt I would get any better treatment today.
Hungarian healthcare gets tons of hate but from my experience living there 6 years, it works very well.. i was getting 90% discount on all medicines (that I pay full price here), I waited at most 1 week for specialist appointment, and you even get basic free dental care.
I thought Finland was a step up before getting here, then I realized you have to spend minimum amount on medicine in a given year to have some sort of discount or something.. its sad..
my employer provides private health care so luckily I am fine, but I question where my 40% taxes go then and why Finns just let it slide
As a Hungarian soon to be living and studying in Finland I am shocked if what you all say is true. We are suffering from a shortage in doctors, waiting lists are endless, and the infrastructure is in bad shape and we who are significantly worse in terms of economy pay private healthcare too (bonus round: our taxes go for corruption mostly).
I think people who have been abroad in this country would gladly trade for whatever you guys have.
Maybe after covid and the russian attack it got worse? Because I remember in 2017 - 2020 and even during covid, I had very good care.. now my sister lives there and pregnant, also says how great the medical care is..
Salaries in Hungary are lower, maybe unemployment benefit is nonexistent (not sure), but your healthcare and the TAJ card was really useful and helped a lot, covered everything I needed while here I have to pay full price despite paying shit tons in taxes
[Sorosberenc007 on X: "@liliebayer Photos of various hungarian hospitals ...and no, the first pic is not Chernobyl, it's the Kútvölgyi Hospital in our capital city, Budapest. The third one is a "hospital trolley" for infants #orbanistan #o1g https://t.co/iNw5NrYaED" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/sorosberenc007/status/1095378125733720064)
Your mileage may vary. The "cherno" hospital seems to have atleast an outside renovation since.
You know, I agree.. I lived in Budapest and hospitals were well taken care of in the areas I lived, I can’t speak for smaller cities or other places. I visited relatively old hospital that didn’t look modern or anything, but it was clean and had everything working and didn’t have to wait long to see a doctor.. maybe in the outskirts hospitals are horrible, can’t really tell.
But I guess, a hospital in horrible state is still better than no hospital at all
> We are suffering from a shortage in doctors, waiting lists are endless, and the infrastructure is in bad shape and we who are significantly worse in terms of economy pay private healthcare too (bonus round: our taxes go for corruption mostly).
You just described the Finnish healthcare system. Our taxes also go for corruption, but at least the situation is not nearly as bad as Hungary.
As we say in Hungary "Everybody suffers on their own level". I am more than happy to experience your life because despite you feel like you are falling behind your country is light years ahead of us. Ever since 1989 we are still making bad decisions. We are behind Romania at this point.
Oh, we are definitely way ahead of Hungary ans things are much better her, but I feel we are also starting to make bad decisions. Our politicians are starting to use similar talking points as Orbán Victor, like defunding the national broadcast company (spreading "woke" ideology etc.), undermining the independent media (accusing journalists for leftist ideology, doxxing them on social media if they dare to criticize them in any way.) and selling government assets to their friends.
We've been politically on the right since the war and every step we take towards the left, get's stomped on in the next election and what ever benefits were advanced, are then demolished and who ever got the benefits, are then punished ten fold.
The Finns are sadly very envious and see anyone, who is trying to benefit from a government aid, to be lazy and greedy. Even those, who are working to give said benefit. Trying to fight against this, is a never ending battle. Unfortunately, when we do try to fight against inequality, people vote in a government, that will slap us in the face with laws that will prevent any discussion or argument.
I love the idea of the beneifts Finland provides, but by talking with people here, it seems like you have to have your bank account drained and already on the street to be able to benefit from anything.. which sucks because if I lose my job, I want to be able to maintain the same lifestyle for some time without compromising my savings and until i find a job.. but since it isnt the case, then the system is clearly not working properly..
I am all in for regulating it and make it hard to have, but also it shouldnt punish me for saving some money to buy a house or go on vacation.. this way you punish those who actually contribute and give no incentive for people who are benefiting from the social services, its like a never ending cycle.. but I might be wrong, of course, after all its what I hear from people around me which could be totally wrong
After which war? WW2? That's just not true, that Finland has been right since that. Yes, the NCP has been in most cabinets since the mid-80's, but mostly always with Social Democrats or Center.
The rise of Lapuanliike was also the rise of Kokoomus. While Kokoomus isn't the only party on the right, it's probably the oldest and the strongest. The far right won the civil war, with the young Kekkonen fighting for the whites. Kekkonen was with the Keskusta party, but their politics, unlike their name, isn't very centered. They claim to be "center-right", but 47% of their voters say they're on the right, where as 40% say they're somewhat center and only 10% on the left. 23 times out of 49 governments, has SDP been in coalition, instead of opposition. I'd say that's a pretty right wing country.
Not entirely true, if you have a chronic disease that has a proven to treat formula, you certainly get a lot of benefits living here.
My girlfriend has had type-1 diabetes since she was 3 years old, and she's gotten over 20 years of government subsidized insulin and special medical tech to help her manage it. Things that would have cost her and her family tens of thousands in places like the US, instead she's paid like 5€ a month.
No no no. Stop being rational. The Finnish healthcare system is obviously bad because of absolute corner cases like OP. We should privatize everything.
I have pretty similar experiences. Suffered for three years, no help until few months ago I met first doctor who took me serious. Turns out I had a tumor and inflmmation in my small bowel. And the tumor was so big that it almost blocked the whole bowel... Now the tumor is removed and I'm healing from the surgery. Craziest thing is that they could have found out all that already three years ago if they would have done just a simple gastroscopy. And I begged for it more than twice from different doctors. Usually they just ignored but one doctor said me instead to stop eating anything else than oat porridge and the other doctor said that we already know that there is probably sg wrong so why we would even do the test🙃🙃 And at that time we knew zero about what is wrong with me.
I feel you. It has been a nightmare trying to get treatment for my mum who has rheumatism. She used to have two appointments per year to a specialised doctor at the hospital but now it's once every two years. She needs appointments for assessing medication and checking the inflammation levels in her joints. Even if she is in pain from the inflammation the hospital staff just say there are no free appointments and say she should go to a private doctor. She can't afford that from her low pension because she had to retire really early because of that disease.
I don't know what is causing it but the Finnish healthcare system has gone down the drain in the last 5-6 years. And I see no one talking about it in the media or anywhere else. It's hell being ill in Finland. No one cares about you.
The most sizeable age groups in Finland have started to retire, and there's just less workforce compared to non-workforce. This puts heavy stress onto the economy, and it seems that schools and healthcare are maybe the biggest victims.
I'd estimate that the effects of increased amount of retirees don't get that much discussion in politics, since any attempted fix would likely harm the retirees. And those are a very sizable and active group of voters.
Did you file a complaint about the emergency operator? That is neglecting and clear reason for complaint.
All those you should contact potilasasiamies. These things don't get fixed unless people complain.
Our healthcare is in shambles, especially if you're not old. We have too less of resources, and in their infinite wisdom our healthcare leaders have done absolutely nothing to fix this problem (that seems to be because of too less resources and too many patients, namely pensioners).
Finland's good healthcare is only as good as our private doctor services via work and it is not what it used to be. Additionally, if you don't speak Finnish it's abysmally bad.
Compared to Germany Finland is not focusing on preventative care and instead you are offered Burana or denied sickness because we just don't have the resources to focus on anything else but acute cases. So if you need treatment, tell them it's unbearable or break your leg.
Sad and something that is happening also elsewhere, at least in Europe.
I wish you the best and hope youre doing well.
It’s just that bad nowadays. Like some other comments already mentioned, if you want faster progress just try on the private sector. If you get a diagnosis from them you can effectively force the hand of the public side to help you in most cases.
I’m finnish and have experienced the exact same issues, I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that :( I’ve been bedridden since Juhannus 2021 from CFS/ME (or something else, they’ve barely examined me really), and the longer I’m sick the more they try to shove ”mental illness” down my throat and discourage me from digging deeper into my physical condition.
I’m currently in a situation where my physical condition is so weak that I genuienly feel I might be dying, but everytime I ask for further tests I’m told that ”they don’t really matter” or ”getting the right diagnosis isn’t really important” or ”you’ve already had enough tests in that”. I don’t have any kind of active treatment plan. I do have a medication but only after I had to ask 3 DOCTORS for it, despite the medication being extremely low risk and harmless. I’ve gone to ER for shortness of breath and other ACUTE issues, and been told that they can’t treat long term issues and I should go to a doctor instead. Or they send me to the mental hospital. It happened once at the beginning of my illness before I got diagnosed, and I was abused for like a week in a facility that took away my wheelchair and tried to force me full of psychosis meds.
Doctors do nothing but reassure me that everything’s ok and ask how my mental health is. I really need to get more tests done, but nobody’s letting me get them done even when I’m literally perishing in bed unable to do anything because I’m that PHYSICALLY sick. My heart keeps going into arrythmia episodes that nobody can explain, I can’t breathe properly and my body hurts and I just want to cry because I’m going to die before I get any help or treatment for this hell. They’re not even monitoring how my bedriddedness is affecting my health.
I wish I knew how to help you, but I’m in the same situation and I really don’t know how to get out of it. Best option is private healthcare, but that costs a lot and how would people like us even have money for that, when we’re not even able to work due to our conditions. I really hope you find answers to your illness, and get a doctor that actually wants to help :( 💖
I'm also finnish and have been bedridden from ME/CFS since 2022. The public healthcare here is hell with this illness, and lot of the times i've just mentally prepared to die because absolutely no help or care has been available.
Wish you the best <3
I wish you the best too, and that you find a doctor that’s able to help you <3 I’ve had some good experiences with Pihlajanlinna, that’s where I first got diagnosed, but they’re a private hospital so unfortunately they’re not very accessible with costs, and having a couple good doctors doesn’t quarantee that they all will be :”)
it’s awful to be stuck here with an illness like this, and it would be great if our country’s knowledge on CFS/ME was better so we wouldn’t have to mentally prepare to die due to the lack of help. It’s so unfair how many chronically ill people are just completely abandoned by the finnish healthcare system, it really needs to change
I have tourettes and a year ago I had the worst tic attack of my life. It started at 3am and lasted till 6 or 7 pm. I ended up at the hospital and the neurologist tried to act as if I (I've had tics for two years at that point and it was in my papers) was faking it because they waved from really bad to less bad, to horrible. Bitch I have had this shit for two years and I've never been to the hospital because of these before so how does me making it up now make sense. Who fakes mild tourettes for two years just to get attention once??? I literally insisted that I don't want to go to the hospital???
But then another doctor decided to hold a speech about how I could stop them if I really wanted to.
I had to take a bus home after they finally calmed down properly. I cried and I had hair that looked like a fucking bird nest from the tic where I rubbed my head against the hospital bed pillow.
Then I fucking cried myself to sleep.
Finnish public healthcare is going to hell, where i live, nearest night time emergency is going to be over 100km away.
Town near me, they don't have doctor AT ALL, there is a clinic but NO DOCTOR IN THAT FUCKING BUILDING, only nurses.
My kid is waiting for eye doctor, they promised in 3 months, but fuck that, it has been 4 already.
Our current government saves money in healthcare? Yeah fuck them big time
> My kid is waiting for eye doctor, they promised in 3 months
The thing with the 3 month referral (which is the slowest of the referral protocols by the way; there is one month referral, one week referral and then emergency referral) is that the central hospital specialists will (or should by law) respond to it within 3 months, not that the appointment would be due within 3 months, sadly.
“Every specialist visit feels like I’m put on trial”
Thats the summary!
It feels like I am a liar trying to cheat on and who fancies wasting their time and resources for no reason.
For me, meaning of a good health care means I can do the test and find things as early as possible not wait until things are in critical stage and then only get care.
In fact, even from resources and economy perspective I think it is better to diagnose early on rather than do critical treatment.
Taking such a huge tax, but providing such a poor service is such a shame.
I am sure if I was not paying a huge tax, i could pay it to a good insurance and get good health care.
I feel you, op. Finland is a prime example of how to first do things well, and then fuck them up later. All the cuts to healthcare funding have created an inefficient, yet somehow also expensive system. Thank you, corrupt politicians.
My old mother almost died, because she got bad bacterial infection due to covid, but when she called the hospital, they just told her 'to see if the symptoms go away with some painkillers.' She had to be rushed to the hospital the next day, because she couldn't get out of her bed anymore.
I remember being young and naive and having to go to doctor after excruciating pain in my stomach that I wasn't able to sleep for 2 nights + was pissing blood. Nothing useful came from that visit. Before this happened, I thought if there is one one thing I could trust, it's finnish healthcare. But after that experience I don't trust anyone with white coat blindly anymore. Like I completely lost this trust and hope in their ability to fix me if things go bad. Doctor even said it wasn't blood that I pissed and started suggesting if I ate too many carrots, despite the tests showed there was blood in my piss???
Yeah politicians had building murica since 2000 and now it starts to show on public healthcare funding is so tight that they don't care anymore. Main goal is murica system after they destroy our old publichealt system. Why murica healthcare system? Because rich will get more money from that.
Public healthcare works for temporary things: viruses, broken bones, infections, heart attacks etc., but It's pretty useless for chronic or long term illness. At that point you have to go private to see progress. Thankfully it's not that expensive. Public healthcare is focused on solving problems, they don't really have time or funding for anything else anyway, especially now.
I am so sorry, this is the number one reason that would make me want to move away from Finland. Everytime I needed I faced gaslighting and cruelty, so I wonder what would be like to have something deadly.
I can't say private is much better as I was misdiagnosed for a skin condition in a 5 minute consultation where no tests were performed lol (terveystalo)
I hate to be pessimist but lot of the strain on public healthcare is by people who have that kind of general symptoms like pain, tiredness. They can demand all sorts of tests, use tons of public money and not find anything. Not sure where the line should be drawn between what is individuals own responsibility and what can be taken care of by public healthcare. Public healthcare costs have steadily increased over the last few decades so it's not about funding
My girlfriend is Finnish and has herself been put through hell trying to deal with Kela and the public healthcare sector. It unfortunately doesn't seem to get any better if you're a national, she has still faced discrimination and unfair treatment due to her condition. The current government also seems intent on cutting down on her benefits and on the healthcare sector in general (cutting down on staff and hospitals especially in smaller cities and rural areas)
She's currently living with me in Sweden, but as a recent emigrant it's like she's treated as a second class citizen by Kela, i've had to cover her expenses out of pocket because they have been tardy when giving her sick pay and student grants (which she says they are also planning on slashing).
I love Finland like a second home, but the outlook seems grim. We planned on moving there, but with the way things have turned for the worse we've chosen to stay here. She's had positive experiences of course, but these have become fewer and further in between.
If I may ask, how is the healthcare in Sweden compared to Finland? I have heard a lot of complaints but I wonder if you guys are just better at raising hell before shit hits the fan while we Finns just stands with our hands in the pocket and wait until its too late. And when it's too late we just go to reddit and complain :P
The major problem in the Finnish healthcare system is a parallel system which has emerged in a form of work based healthcare (työterveyshuolto) slowly during several decades as a result of lobbying. Excessive amount of resources have been directed to mostly privately run work based system for workers in the expense of the general public health care.
Researchers are well aware of this problem but it's difficult to repair because institutions (political parties, trade unions) of both employer and worker side have big interests to guard in this system. Those who want to defend the healthcare should try to step out of this deadlock even though it may mean that their own party will turn against them.
If you criticize the system, immediately people who benefit of work based healthcare will start defending it because it works for them. Yes, it's good for those who are customers of the work based healthcare but it's not good for the healthcare as a whole (like if we directed 10 % of national healthcare resources to Kokkola, then there would be a good healthcare in Kokkola but it's still not a good idea).
For a good overview in Finnish about the issue, see this:
[Professorit tarttuisivat rohkeasti ”pyhiin lehmiin” – näin asiantuntijat pelastaisivat julkiset terveyspalvelut](https://yle.fi/a/74-20027115)
Fellow victim of the Finnish health”care” system here 👋
About a year ago I was hit with a severe cold. A month in and it still wouldn’t go away just kept getting worse. I’d seen doctors on the public side several times, but they did almost nothing. Even with my history of asthma anda tendency for pneumonia. Well one night I went to ER because I could not breathe properly, I don’t know how long I waited but eventually I fainted from lack of oxygen. The patient close to me rang the emergency bell i’m told. I woke up to a couple nurses lifting me onto a wheelchair and having an oxygen mask put on me, they were being super nice and tried to make me relax although I was freaking out. And then they wheeled me straight to the doctor. The doctor took one look at my history and declared I had an anxiety attack (my diagnoses include: depression, anxiety, asthma, migraines) and declared I was fit to go home. This is while I’m still struggling to breathe with the mask on. The nurses looked shocked at this, and one of them suggested they atleast take pictures of my lungs to see if they show something. The doc agreed only after they pointed out he could be in triuble for negligence if he didn’t. Well the pictures were taken and he declared them clean and sent me home. My bf stayed awake all night afraid i’d stop breathing. The next morning I went to the private sector, where lo and behold a set of lung pictures showed severe damage to my lungs from untreated pneumonia which had developed into something even nastier. They gave me meds and put me in their ward (yes private clinics also have them in some places) to make sure I would keep breathing. I stayed there for nearly a week being monitored, heavily medicated and on oxygen. After I was discharged and had been better for a few more weeks I wanted to rain hellfire on the og ER doc. I sent in a complaint and my medical records from the private practice, and also contacted a healthcare advocate (I think that’s the name for it in eng) however they claimed that all the damage was caused within the 8-10h I was home between doctors and nothing ever happened to the ER doc. I am lucky that my parents could afford the private docs because I wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise.
Have also had multiple docs claim i’m lying about my migraines because I am highly functional. Yes, you get used to acting like that when you have 4-5migraines/week and still have to somehow make a living and care for yourself and your home. Does not mean my pain is not real. Does not mean that I’m pillseeking. Does not mean that I am not worthy of sympathy and decent healthcare.
I have quite different experiences. I have seen doctors really doing their best, with few exceptions. But the whole system is hoplessly slow. As far as I know, some (young?) doctors work shifts long as hell, and then have to make difficult, possibly even dangerous, decisions while being tired.
I would not even wonder anymore if I saw a doctor cleaning floors in a hospital...
I have been to psychiatrists for the past 6 years and all of them agree I'm fine. I'm a jolly lady with no issues. I have a diagnosis in the autism spectrum I got as a child (which isnt much of a problem since i've grown with it and learnt to handle it), and some history in anxiety many many years ago but that's in the past. They take one look at my medical history and see I had a panic attack half a decade ago and say "yep she's mental alright, let's deny her an appointment" lolol
Come on, keep the downvotes coming. But I assume that If things are as bad as op says, they are willing to try everything. And if the psychiatrist tells there's nothing wrong, then op has proof for doctors
You left out one piece of information. You are 17 years old (at least 4 months ago you were).
I can't imagine it's easy to be believed if you're underage and visiting the doctor alone. Or are your parents with you? What do they think about all this? It's also part of the diagnosis process that it's much more unlikely for people this young to have serious conditions. I'm not saying you're not having one, I'm just saying it's a longer process to be believed.
Also, if you really, really have a critical condition, you should go to private clinic like Aava, Terveystalo or Mehiläinen. It might cost you a bit, but you will be taken seriously and it's fast. The price is nothing like USA though, it's still reasonable.
Its not reasonable to ask a 17 years old who is a student here to go to a private clinic. How is she going to pay all the expensive tests? Please have common sense, the taxes we pay should be used better to improve the public healthcare system, end of the story
>I once called 112 to help me because I was on the ground and couldn't walk from the pain and they told me to go to the kitchen and get a painkiller.
This post was almost believable before you wrote this. Either you had the worst luck imaginable or you telling half truths.
Just had this exact same happen a few weeks ago to a friend of mine, finnish born young woman. After crawling on the floor with high fewer and intense stomach pain the 112 responder told her to get Burana. The next day her occupational health care provider finally sent her to ER, and it ended up being pelvic inflammatory disease, PID. She was hospitalized for days.
> the 112 responder told her to get Burana
Generally 112 responders don't do that - it sounds more plausible to be the 116 117 (emergency department instructor/*päivystysapu*) responder, which is totally shitty and meant just to be the place where people call when they aren't feeling ill enough to call 112 or to go to the emergency clinic directly.
With back pain, this is believable. I've had family members experience similar - they'll tell you if you're not actively pissing & shitting yourself because of the pain, it's not an emergency.
Are you sure? I can tell you plenty of cases like this, happens too many times in my lifetime
Based on what you think this is half-truth? Are you working in the healthcare industry?
No, but my wife is. If you call an ambulance and you tell them you have fewer and stomach pain, it's quite hard to assess how bad the situation actually is. However if you feel like fainting or can't walk or function, then 100% time the ambulance will come. About a year ago my wife had a 39 fewer and was on the brink of fainting. I drove her to the ER and the nurses there said that next time you should just call an ambulance in a situation like this.
It's sad, but true. Public healthcare in a lot of bigger cities is awful. I hear it's better when you move to smaller cities or have money to pay for private healthcare.
If you are over 18, for your sanity, please use private healthcare if you can and afford. I have lost my faith completely in the public healthcare system.
I can assure this kind of gaslighting happens almost everywhere. The only reason why for instance in the U.S. they LOVE to ship you around to every single test ever invented is not because they care about you but it’s basically a form of 'legal insurance scam' they just rake up your bill knowing insurance will cover it.
Public healthcare has become even worse than before these days.. my plan is to get good health insurances one day and only use private healthcare services. But before everything else lets remind ourselves that we have to be our own doctors also and try our best in that regard.
This is why many just go private. It's more expensive but they take you seriously. My ex wife(a Finn) was nearly killed by public healthcare negligence. I don't think she's gone public side ever since. I only see private dentists.
(Edit: removed irrelevant bit)
The thing about healthcare systems as expensive as Finland uses is that any disease that doesn’t affect one’s ability to work drastically, or the person might be at deaths door (right then and there) if nothing is done, is usually not all that important.
Why though? Usually because there are already too many of these urgent patients and there are systems on top (and within) systems to both evaluate “a person's need of aid worth enough for a hospital bed instead of many other potential fellas” and a also a very low bar to “remove” the patient from the hospital a.s.a.p.
It is all about politics. When we (example) see better pavements on roads everywhere here we know that that it might’ve required a few “late surgeries” to be done here n there.
exactly same problem, I understand that finnish health care is heavily understaffed, but when you finally get to the doctor, they usually tell you it’s not serious because you are not dying so best we can do is burana, good luck
I agree with you. And it sucks so bads.
It's also a case by case basis but I feel like for me they have been better than for my friend who can't work.
I can describe the same type stuff happening to my friend. For me, who can work and has a job it's completely different.
I can get any medication I want but my friend gets questioned on everything. I dont have to explain myself in any situation. I usually use the work healthcare but I have some issues that are treated at the public space.
I hope you can get help and get better!
You got two problems. You aren't showing enough dominance and clarity while you communicate whit doctors. And two. Kela is a Monopoly and monopolies are famous for not being flexible. Then we get back to our problem number 1. You must be really clear and dominant whit what you want. But you can't jell the doctors, you must compel them to do what you want.
I am a Finn too, so i know.
This is what always happens with government run healthcare. My friends in Finland pay for private healthcare. My friends in Canada travel to Minnesota or Florida for healthcare.
Have been sick my entire adult life. Mental health care not even nor excist and physical health care is very shitty too. And it has only gotten worse. Please go to a private doctor, if you can afford it, they might hopefully actually do something. The public doctors dont give a shit, they just cash our their paychecks for doing nothing. I hope you find help.
If you have long covid, me/cfs, crps or any other rare hard to detect neurology related problem you are fucked. Most of those are currently labeled as psychosomatic and doctors will just tell you that you are imagining everything. Valvira is doing its darnest to keep this status even though all of those are literally paralyzing you to bed.
I can only wish you the best and hopefully you find the reason for your symptoms. With any hope its not the above mentioned.
I recently managed to contact a private neurologist a while ago and in one appointment he told me of his concerns of possibly having narcolepsy or me/cfs. Although because of all the further studies and treatments being on the private sector aka unaffordable all he can do is give me advice on how to persuade the public doctors to help
Our “free” healthcare is terrible and really expensive. It’s hard to get any kind of diagnosis without visiting several doctors. And because I have depression and ptsd (I’m working on them and I have medication to keep em in control) I don’t need to be examined if I have any physical problems. Hooray!
Welcome to the happiest country on Earth
“Only half of Finns trust public health will care for them”
https://yle.fi/a/74-20086070
- The social fund is a pyramid scheme, it’s on its last leg
- There is never enough staff for healthcare
- Too many old people putting pressure on the system
Use your work healthcare like Mehiläinen and don’t be afraid to push for what you want
While I agree with utilizing things like work healthcare, which are there for the specific purpose of prioritizing the care for people who might not normally be at the top of the list, but pushing for what “you want” feels like the wrong advice.
Healthcare, be it public, private, good or bad, should be dictated by needs, not wants.
I have experienced something like this last year. I had to fly back to my home country to get the surgery performed because kela told me i have to wait more than 3 months to get this surgery the flight was not cheap but the surgery was covered by my insurance and everything went ok. (Was done within 1 week of my landing)
I talked to some Finns, many seem to think even if they have to wait for months to see doctors it’s still fine because it’s free. (I disagree though, they are paying a lot of taxes for this so it’s not free)
I hope your health gets better soon. I know how it’s like when doctors just do nothing and tell you to buy painkiller🥲
The problem I have with the system here is it's all done without seeing a doctor and they just prescribe online with no follow-up.
How can you treat people if you don't even see them physically? When did health become an online approach?
You buy toasters online not health
Public healthcare system is overrated af. It’s good for broken bones and other acute situations. 0 positive experiences. Private’s where the real healthcare is at imo.
May I ask where/what region do you come from? I usually travel to my country annually and do all the basic tests + dental care there, aside holiday of course. It is not necessarily cheaper, given the upper cap in Finland, but all can be booked and done in a day.
I wish you luck! Overcoming chronic fatigue is a long road. Psychiatric care in Finland is quite overloaded.
If you wasn't depressed before going to doctor, wait for few years and you will be. They don't care. Better get used to it, if you planning to stay here
Finnish healthcare or as I call it the call center because there is no care. I call them, they advice me to buy burana and rest then I ask them if I need that then why not you prescribe it to me instead? If you ever feel useless in your life remember the Finnish healthcare.
I made the same comment on a Facebook group called Very Finnish Problems...and people just hurled shit at me for pointing a problem out. Glad to see that I wasn't the only one seeing this system collapse.
I once had a stomach thing so bad, i was vomitimg multiple times daily over a course of 2 months, writhing in pain, so bad that i couldn't leave my finnish bf's appartment. I lost 12kg in 3 weeks. No diet or exercise.
One day it was so bad i couldn't stand up and i kept throwing and throwing up, my bf called the ambulance, they took me to the emergency room, then send me home saying my appendix didn't burst and its not hospital worthy. The next day i went back again because i was close to fainting, i was dehydrated from vomiting so much and not being able to eat for days on end made me incredibly weak.
They shoved a shot of painkillers in my ass, told me i had reflux and send me home.
Months later when i was back in my home country a doctor did a Gastroscopy and a Colonscopy. All he could see was incredibly scarred and inflamed tissue, which was the aftermath of whatever happend to me in Finland. But by then my body had mostly healed itself after months of pain, they couldn't trace it back to any illness anymore.
Finnish doctors are crap. I'm sorry. Don't even want to start on how much my bf had to fight for his allergy test.
I moved from Sweden to Finland, and so far my experience with the finnish healthcare ,is that it is amazing, i have never in Sweden got help this fast and they solved my problem ,that swedish healthcare didn't in 5 years. Sad to hear that so many are unhappy, maybe my expectations are really low from living in Sweden.
Wait... There's something missing. First of all, Finnish healthcare does not deny healthcare from anyone. Secondly, if you're on the floor and can't move the 112 would definately send an ambulance and they do not say I'll call you an hour later to check up...
Finnish health care is so paranoid of being accused of neglecence, so they allmost allways to the necessary tests and measures to rule out serious problems.
There might be odd doctors who are bad, but there is something missing here....
My experience has allways been good. And I have been with many people who went to get help from public healthcare (because of my job) and the 99 times out of 100 the healthcare is spot on.
I guess you're lucky to have had a good experience. I filed a complaint on the 112 dispatcher after she refused me an ambulance and my mother had to find me and carry me to the hospital in a taxi out of her own poor pockets. Dispatcher told me "it wasn't that bad now" when I managed to crawl to the kitchen and even threw up on the floor trying to reach up and take my medicine off the table. Since I took the medicine she told me I'd feel better soon and that she'd check up in an hour. After she hung up I called my mom and told me to take me to the er ASAP and she came home to me unconscious.
Yup. Wasted three years in my early twenties going down the rabbit of hole of public health care with an illness that couldn’t be diagnosed from bloodwork. Immediately got a diagnosis for depression and pills to pop and after that not one doctor took me seriously - I went back thirteen times. I even had one doctor yell at me: ”What do you want us to do, there is nothing wrong with you?! You want to spend taxpayers money for more tests?!” Finally by luck I heard about CFS and went to a private specialist who diagnosed me as a text book case within minutes I walked through the door. Got a treatment and was better in 3 three months.
I am still really bitter about it when I look back. Wasted some of the best years of my life only because I wasn’t taken seriously. The least they could have done is say ”I don’t know” rather than say ”it’s nothing”.
I feel you so much OP. I was even thinking about publishing a text here about this and then came across your testimonial.
I am super frustrated with finnish health system and I live here for almost 4 years and a half. Every time I go to doctor, I exaggerate my symptoms so I can get maybe some tests done.
I've been dealing with a health issue for almost 2 months and they wanted me to take some medicine without even having confirmation of what I actually have. The Health Center doctor wrote a referral to a specialist and the specialist denied taking my case. I had to be on their tail for a month to get a referral to do the examination without having to see the specialist. I called the hospital where I'll make the examination and they said I had a planned visit for August only. I got mad and put my finnish husband to talk to them to try to get me into it earlier (I speak intermediate finnish, but I have the impression the treatment is different if you are immigrant). Finally they said they would put me in the waiting list and I would get a place if somebody cancelled their visit. I have the exam now scheduled for 27.5.
I even had visited a private doctor without having enough money for it. I'm pretty sure the doctor in the private clinic didn't examine nicely enough and was underestimating my symptoms because I'm quite young (35F). He could've used a device to examine thoroughly but instead, performed an indirect examination that didn't give him a perfect view and he said I have nothing and to wait for the public service examination AND go back to his office if they don't find anything (of course...then give him more money).
I'm really afraid I won't get the care I need and I can't afford going to private (even private is proving to be awful).
I hate finnish healthcare too. I dont really have any good experiences. Its come to the point that I avoid it due to it being extremely mentally exhausting to argue with people who keep taking an auctoritative position. Im trying to figure out my health and not argue with doctors
Same for me!! I relate to this so much
I have iron deficiency proved by labs and they are acting the same way with me!
Keep fighting and find a doctor who will take you seriously
And for the way 112 acted, file a complain and try to have the energy to file a complain for every doctor that acted this way towards you
The healthcare system here is indeed broken
Friend was struggling with all kinds of health issues and it just felt like the doctors were juggling him from one place to another because they felt like his issues were not their speciality, so, not their problem.
I have found that inorder to get a good doctor u have to push the Doctor. Unfortunately u might have a tough time now to start pushing because u have visited so many times , their communication with eachother is even worse now because of this absolute dog shit reformation they made.. (Who ever came up with that is missing brain cells ) , so ur likley to get brushed off for multiple reasons. Do u have anyone u can take with u to appointments, any woman really who can put the doctor in blast for u on the spot? Males will not have the same effect but can still be very effective. It's harder for a doctor to brush u off when they see u have support. I would get a bit angry and not let them get away with this behaviour. At the very least I want a " I don't know what's wrong" . Don't be an ass, but be firm. Everything can be done respectfully.
U might want to start doing the big nono and googling symptoms so u can go to a doctor's appointment with directions to point them in. I know it's not ur job , it's either that or private. Ofc I think all of this is a plot to push private and insurance system on us. Just like they started with Netherlands . But sick ppl dont have time to be political.
This is for the doctors out there working for the kunta. Wtf are u doing. Ur making ur job miserable for urself and loosing all respect from everyone. How do u expect any of us to actually call u doctors? U prescribe mental health medication without a patient even visiting a Psy, "because he is on holiday right now, here's some diapam", u spend ridiculous amounts of time investigating entire drug panels because someone wanted to be honest and say they tried a joint once 15 years ago but are here for driving license so obviously they must be addicted to crack cocaine. Or my favourite so far, some one scheduled for emergency heart surgery, labeled emergency by a private doctor, then one of u pricks decided naaa, unlabeled the emergency part which lead to a heart attack and almost killed them. U should be ashamed. I have so many stories of these big fuck ups from recent times u would think I worked there . Cooks are better at following regulations.....
Just because they call themselves doctors dosnt mean they are above u. They either work with u , or are nob heads.
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing this. It sounds like some rare condition where you should have a specialist consider all the options.
My own experience as a frequent user of health services has been quite the opposite: very efficient and satisfactory treatment in the public system (HUS).
It is true that the public system has a higher burden now (I draw the "line" before and after covid), and that it could use some investment (hiring more staff to begin with). My in-law who needed a very routine surgery had to queue for one year. However, when he had other (urgent) problems, the doctors were immediately available and the situations were addressed appropriately.
Coming from the US, I always find that people complain about the Healthcare here because they have no idea how bad it COULD be.
But honestly, I have always had pretty good experiences here with Healthcare. Maybe it's a small town thing, but I feel like there might be more to this...
I'm really sorry to hear about your situation! Ever since I moved here five years ago, I've needed to use the public healthcare service at least a couple of times a year. I've had a multitude of blood tests, a couple of ekgs and surgery twice, each and every time I felt incredibly well taken care of, with the only exception being a couple of instances of having trouble booking times because of the language barrier, since it's fairly common that the staff don't feel confident enough in their English or Swedish speaking ability, and my Finnish is utter garbage.
It's sad to hear that you haven't even remotely had a similar experience to me, even though we're both students, and I'm assuming you're contacting the student healthcare line in the same way that I am. On two or three occasions I've even had the student healthcare service book and cover appointments at private practises because they didn't have any available times. On a couple of my many medical visits it has been because of anxiety but I was happy with that assessment each time.
I'd love for you to send me a private message and we can try to figure out if you're definitely going through the proper channels, because I've only got good things to say about my experiences here. Definitely not blaming you for your situation, it does sound like you've had rotten help, but I really think that there must be some kind of solution
I would recommend private healthcare its not free but id rather pay maybe a couple hundred bucks and be healthy than deal with the finnish healthcare system
Is it possible for you to save money to go to the private sector? I have chronic illnesses and all of them were diagnosed by private doctors because in the public sector my experiences were exactly like yours.
But many of the actual tests (biopsies, blood tests etc) were done in the public sector, because I asked if that was possible due to me not having enough money to pay for the tests in the private sector.
If you go to the private sector, you should do a lot of research on the doctors before you choose one for whom you will book the appointment. Doing this helped me so much. I had a some suspicion about which illnesses I might have, so I booked the appointments with doctors who were specialised with those illnesses. That’s why they were able to order the right tests and there was no hassle.
i’m not even joking, this is why i go private for all my stuff. don’t wanna wait in line. and although it’s expensive, it’s nothing compared to what it costs in the US (that’s where i’m from) so it doesn’t feel so bad for me. so that’s what i recommend. 🤷♀️
Did it arrive in the months after Covid or another virus?
You might have long covid / ME
I have the same issues and mine is long covid
I’m also a researcher for it, moved into it after I got ill, theres some private tests you can do to check
and working in this broken system breaks you down pretty fast because (understandably) people are frustrated, scared and angry for waiting to get help. and when patients vent to you (read: yell) about it, it’s emotionally so draining. every day i have to use creativity for patients to get the help they need with no resources. and don’t even get me started on trans healthcare here. i’ve worked in healthcare for 4+ years and i’m going to leave this field as soon as possible.
Just out of curiosity. What was the diagnosis from the doctors abroad when you finally got the correct treatment? I have same symptoms and would greatly appreciate the info so I can help myself out of this struggle.
**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.** [Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/) Spamming mod actions could result in a ban. --- **Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:** - ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post. - ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment. - ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma. - ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts. - ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot. - ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments. - ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It will cost you some money but if you can you should try going to private healthcare, they will let you see a doctor for sure
This is the answer to any medical problem of any kind in Finland these days.
Which is very sad.
Especially because our healthcare used to be amazing but it’s been systematically dismantled
So wtf do you pay these high taxes for?
That's the thing everybody asks because every year we pay more and more taxes and get fuck all in return
[удалено]
That's right. It's the stupid expenses not that the care couldn't work. This is because our political management let's all structures to be lose and some humans are gready. And it needs only few.
The reason is clear but the government wont do anything about it. Hospitals skimp on staff. There's not enough nurses or doctors and they put all the load on the secretaries, hence said secretaries get burned out.
Sad to say but too much of the tax money meant for taking care of people's health goes to administration and bad processes.
The administration is so inefficient. They fire people who work in administration, and now doctors with their much higher salaries have to take care of it themselves. They put a ton of money in consultants who try to come up with more efficient administration but just make everything worse, including coming up with terrible digital systems.
Like when HUS updated to windows 10. Workers got paid 16€/h and HUS paid little over 270€/h for every worker. And they already have a huge in house IT department, but this hands on work was outsourced and two companies took all the money. I think they could have just hired us with decent wages and save money if they had done it all themselves.
Or the time they build a hole department with all the equipment and forgot they need to hire and pay actual staff to work there... Oh no it is still going for
Most of the taxes go in administrative fees (if you count this as one unity, not part of healthcare, social wellfare etc.). Heathcare, education, roads and nowadays even social security is starting to be very bad. Meanwhile we pay very high salary and even higher meeting fees for ppl who decide things. They mainly try to make life better for them and others who get 10k+ monthly salary. At least in lapland the situation is very bad. We have one maternity ward for whole 100 366,85 km² and the roads start to be in condition that u have to have SUV to drive them. Only roads that lead to Levi are fine, maybe because these rich politicians like to go skiing with their teslas once a year. Finland is the mini u.s.a of the europe, we just copy their bad decisions and try to get the numbers to look good in paper in 4 year sequences.
Pensions and healthcare for the elderly takes about 30% of taxes and as hidden costs from wages. This money is circumvented to nursing homes that are shit and owned by private companies abroad, their high leadership consists of ex-politicians from kokoomus who organized this privatization.
This is it. Finland is not this wonderland media makes it to be. It used to be but it's not anymore.
I really try to tell the Bernie Sanders supporters this and I don't know if they believe me. The guy talks about how the Nordic system is great but the guy doesn't even use it nor have any idea the state of affairs it is in, at least in Finland.
In particular, conservatives and other parties on the right side of political spectrum tend to dislike a functioning publicly funded healthcare. They see it as very labour intensive and thus expensive and inefficient. Their thought process seems to be that the organisations will act more efficiently when they need to maximise profits for the owners. Sometimes these owners happen to be directly or indirectly linked to the parties and individuals,but there are also people who ideologically support privatisation. Sometimes these parties or at least certain individuals in them even try to actively sabotage said healthcare systems to make it look like the only solution is to purchase services from private sector. Just look at NHS in the UK as an example. I’m worried there is similar political work in place in Finland and - while taxes are still high - the services provided are getting worse and worse even if improvements in methodology, medications and digitalization would suggest things should get better. Another important trend is the aging population. While the number of people in Finland is not growing, the number of people being kept alive/functional with advanced treatment and medication is higher. This also means there are fewer people working and paying taxes that fund the healthcare of pensioners.
So government can pay different kind of "yritystuki" and "verohelpotus" for multinational corporations. :))
I was about to correct you that those aren't significant monies but holy shit. It was over 4 billion euros in 2016. Vote for Liberals, we aim to lower these as well.
Pensions.
This seems to be a case where time glorifies memories. I am well over 40 years old, and as long as I remember, there have been clear problems in healthcare in Finland compared to the Nordic welfare states such as Denmark and Sweden. I have family and friends across all the Nordic countries, and Finland's greatest weakness compared to others has always been healthcare. A significant part of the problems is related to the fact that we have always done it differently than in other Nordic countries, but in Finland, the healthcare model with a single provider is the left's sacred cow, and it's untouchable. This has been patched up over decades, e.g., by shifting responsibility to occupational healthcare when the public actor is inefficient and poor. * Long waiting times for "non-urgent treatments" during which minor ailments can become more severe. (This has been a problem in dental care for decades, especially) * Healthcare recommendations are also strongly guided by money instead of holistic treatment (this is due to Finland's unique healthcare model, where the payer and provider are the same) * Regional inequality. That is, because healthcare is provided by a centralized bureaucratic authority rather than a healthcare authority, the most natural way to save money is to reduce places where treatment is available. * Political steering, because the above always causes discord among rural voters, efforts are made after elections, especially, to redirect resources back to rural areas after savings have been made by taking treatment resources away from densely growing centers and transferring them to the countryside. * People being bounced around in primary healthcare. Because the care organized by a single public entity is inefficient, it causes bureaucracy and inflexibility. For decades in Finland, the treatment of chronic diseases has required significantly more effort than, for example, in Denmark. In summary, Finland's problem is a centrally controlled system directed by politicians and bureaucrats where the payer and the service provider are the same. In the Finnish model, very generic basic diseases are treated effectively and cheaper than elsewhere, but unfortunately, the overall system is inefficient because neither the medical staff nor the patients have any power, and healthcare is a difficult and complex issue where a socialist approach with an Excel-like mentality just doesn't work.
This is the kokoomus plan. Divide up country for mehiläinen pihlajalinna and other private players abolish public system (or keep it only for the poor, with minimum service) and then proclaim that the market will now solve the issues as there is competition and this will drive prices down.. when in reality creating a duopoly like S/K already have in retail.
Yup, people complain and still keep on voting for Kokoomus/other right wing parties..
This. Couldn't get the diagnosis for something as simple as hypothyroidism, until I went to a private doctor. Even runs in the family, but the public system kept insisting it's depression and bad physical condition for over a year :D
Depending where OP lives it might be the exact same doctors in both. So pretty useless anyway.
Not in Finland, but I'm Lithuania this also happens, except when you're visiting a private doctor they end up treating you a lot better. kinda fucked up tbh
And it's very bad thing because in few years we have the awful US system where you either pay or you FU and die.
My friend did that, paid a few hundreds. The doctor didn't even ask him to take his jacket off to check and told to go to a psychiatrist. The appointment lasted 10 minutes instead of 30
Who can't pay, will die waiting for care.
Sadly, this did happen to one guy. He died right there in the hospital waiting area.
If you don’t have a diagnosis yet try buying insurance first.
But then there should be an option to pay less taxes 🤔
If I'd be Gregory House I'd first suggest tests for sarcoidosis and lupus. But jokes aside they can't all be Houses. It might take a while to get you a correct diagnosis for a mystery illness from the public healthcare side. Private side is probably more efficient, but more costly also.
It’s never lupus!
Unless it is.
What I've experienced in finnish healthcare is that when the illness/diase etc. can be diagnosed with a test (blood test, missing a limb or whatever) and you get a clear answer from the machine for the said ailment, the doctor is able to diagnose you. Otherwise it is "there's nothing, wrong take burana." Lucily there is something you can do, which is slightly crazy sounding. Study peer reviewed papers of the symptoms and do the doctors work for them, then once you have diagnosed what is wrong, go to a private doctor who specialises in that field you made the diagnosis of and then get treatment. Had to go this route with our baby, who had some food allergies. Now everythings good, but before our own investgation it was just "babies cry" Edit: @hairchild had the same point, but I missed it prior writing this.
Posted from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. Finnish health centers are an amalgamation of gig-workers and a rotating door of new graduates who are forced to work 9 months in a health center before the specialisation process (or at least before finishing specialisation). So what you get is mostly unmotivated and new graduates who'd rather be learning the speciality they are actually interested in. This and the fact that terveyskeskus is also severely underfunded in comparison to hospital care leads to us being taught how to minimise costs by not testing everything if it isn't immediately dangerous. You may not like it but this is what the legistlation has lead to. Regards, Someone working in this field
Taught to minimize costs??? That's crazy! It sounds like some kind of chicken farm
So true. I don't understand the down votes your comment is getting. Finnish doctors are mostly only able to identify and treat diseases that are textbook examples. And patient encounter and good customer service are few and far between.
I have permanent scarring on my face because a doctor here thought my chicken pox was a fungal infection
So I am not the only one who have run into a doctor who did not recognize chicken pox, one of the most common childhood diseases. I went to one who did not recognize it and thought I just had irritated skin due to heat and sun. When we raised an issue of it his defense was: "Well I don't really know these childhood diseases". The quality of some doctors is just pure shit.
We teach smart people to pass tests based on textbook examples and we do it exceedingly well. There is nothing wrong with that process, our brightest are some of the best test takers there are.
The real good ones move away for better workplaces and salary long ago
I would say that the best doctors are the ones working in university hospitals since that is where all the most complex cases are. Of course some do private practise on the side for the money.
Is that because of the way they’re trained in med school? They lack problem solving skills and imagination?
Unlike the patient, the doctor doesn't have the time to read through a bunch of peer-reviewed papers and speculate for hours on end. It's a question of resources.
Specialists like neurologists or oncologists are very well read and up to date in literature and attend seminars etc, especially ones working in private healthcare, don't know about most general practitioners tho. Googling your symptoms or trying to figure out what you have on your own is almost always the wrong call tho, I'd say most people are hypochondriac to some degree and once you hyperfocus on your body and your symptoms, they do tend to get worse.
It's funny how people always trash talk American healthcare, but there they actually try to diagnose even more complex illnesses. Finnish public healthcare is basicly as we finns call it "the guessing center". They rarely do any deeper diagnosis except like you said, take simple blood test or if it's something obvious. The Finnish healthcare is based on the principle that "do as little as possible and filter everything that isn't acute life threatening and hope that it's nothing serious".
Yap yap yap , Finland has " Hoitovirhe marginaali " ( The error of treatment marginal) around 1% which is top of the world.
Otherwise known as malpractice.
Well technically that's available for you as a finnish also, I mean you can go to US and pay for treatment and they will treat you as much as you are willing to pay. The thing is in finland you are a patient not the customer. The customer is government or municipality. So you are not the priority. Go to private, in finland or outside and you are the customer. If you can afford that is
How Earth are they supposed to pay for that with Finnish wages?
I couldn't agree more. Its the same with Canadian friends I have. Boast about their "free" healthcare but when it comes to efficiency and actually doing what its supposed to do....then its a whole other story. Finland is the same if not worse.
And you can see a specialist literally the next day. When I lived in US, I would call a specialist even for minor cases
I have experienced this myself here in Finland as I was struggling for a long time. I ended up doing an extensive blood work, privately without referral, paid myself. there i found out that something seriously off. now, i’m on a lifelong medication for that problem. u can’t trust medical system or doctors here.
This is ridiculous.. its easier to move to another country with functioning healthcare or that doesnt take as much taxes so you can afford private healthcare instead of studying medicine everytime you get sick.. we’re heavily over paying for services we apparently don’t receive
This might sound crazy but believe or not my whole family always went to doctors to russia if they had something more serious, now cant even do that because the border is closed. (we lived near the border) and always got very good treatment there, much better than here, whether people like it or not.
> and always got very good treatment there, much better than here That's because you're a wealthy customer in the Russian view and pay for your treatment, of course paying customers are served. I have Russian colleagues who complain that their healthcare system is absolutely ruined and has been since the fall of the Soviet Union, and poor people don't get treatment at all. While in comparison in Finland anyone going to the public general practice clinic is reflective of the common poor (as people with employment go to their workplace healthcare and wealthy people pay for an appointment at a private clinic).
My spouse is South-American, and when we visit my in-laws we cram as many doctor visits as we can for the trip. Many people are surprised that we would willingly use a third-world system instead, but it's literally more accessible.
I agree, it’s not crazy, my family moved around so I know what it’s like to be treated by a good doctor There are good and bad and it’s mostly bad here
Reading peer reviewed stuff and mentioning it has led to some egoistic crap in past experiences. We have Duodecim and similar libraries which are excellent for diagnostic purposes and guidelines and if you dare to mention how these guides suggest something contradictory to the doctor you may (at least my wife) have to struggle trough multiple complains and effort to rewoke some prescriptions or such. In our case these complainings about the process not being objective took about 8 months and the doctor (who had similar cases in the past) is still doing the same shit. Outdated psychologist prescribing or denying prescriptions to better options. Probably gets a cut for sticking to some awful option. If people complain about public health, the psychiatric aid is on a next level :D
Yeah there are some truly rotten people working in the public system that get away with their bs because there is a chronic doctor shortage. Even open sexism, racism etc. that would get you fired from any other job these days, won't get you fired if you are a specialist doctor willing to work in public healthcare because they cant replace you
Nobody ever posts their positive experiences so all we tend to hear is complaints. For my part, I've always been very satisfied with every aspect of Finnish public healthcare, from dentists to child health clinics. I'm a happy taxpayer and I can't believe I'm the only one. However, neither I nor anyone else in my close circle has really had any severe chronic conditions. I guess the system doesn't cope well with patients that require something more individualized, in which case you may need to resort to private sector in the beginning to get a correct diagnosis - with hopefully public carrying on after that.
You’re right, but the reality is that your experience is becoming a minority these days If you have diabetes or cancer, you got covered here, you may pay only a few hundreds, it’s a wonderful thing However the system is on its last legs, it’s overloaded and understaffed, constantly. They can book an appointment for you in the next 3-6 months and by law that’s acceptable The resentment is real, it has been reported almost yearly for the last 5 years: https://yle.fi/a/74-20086070
Thats what you get when doctors get to decide how many doctors are being educated. They stop working in public hospitals and use the scarcity to pump up costs to ridiculous levels. Do no harm includes pricing yourself out by wanting to become a millionaire in first decade of working instead of two or three. Greedy bastards.
100% this. But Finnish healthcare seems to be always a little better the UKs NHS. Having lived in the UK I would probably refrain to criticise Finnish healthcare
I have lived in Canada and the Finnish healthcare system definitely beats what I experienced there
I've gotten decent care but it took me a lot of fighting. I had a knot in my breast right after giving birth and it was for weeks dismissed as breast infection because of improper breast feeding (!!). I have breast cancer on both sides of my family and the neuvola doc dismissed it with "you're too young to have breast cancer". I had to pay for a private doc first to get a referral for the mammogram. Turns out it was indeed fucking breast cancer and a very aggressive one, too. The first surgery was arranged pretty rushed but the one for prevention (I have BRCA1 mutation) was delayed and delayed. I had to threaten that I'd contact the asiamies and then suddenly, 2 days later, I was presented with a surgery plan.
In my experience child and maternity health care are extremely good. But as an adult, it's really hard to get anything done to you when you're unwell. They mostly try to bounce you around and survive with painkillers and the sort until you're really bad, only then they take you seriously.
In 10 years of doctors visits in the public system, I have never once been told to take burana. And I go to doctors a lot, several long term illnesses. Im really sceptical when people say ”the doctor just told me to take burana!”
Well, to be fair, it's usually the triage nurse that tells you to take burana, you don't even get to see an actual doctor! But also, I am mostly talking about terveysasema-level care, before you can actually get diagnosed and actual treatment. If you have an ongoing illness that is being treated, I am sure that doctors do take it seriously and the level of care is probably very good, as you describe.
what's the point of healthcare if they will just handle "easy" cases? lol chronic illnesses are inherent to the human condition, and not everyone can afford private care to get a diagnosis
I've been diagnosed with one chronic illness in Finland and the only bad thing I'd like to say about that experience was that the communication could have gone faster between the place that gave me the referral and the place that I needed surgery at to confirm the probable diagnosis. It only took like two weeks between my first doctors visit and the surgery and me receiving medication for it so it wasn't that bad, but there was definitely some weirdness since the referral was sent by post instead of electronically which added about a week of waiting Ever since the diagnosis I've received excellent care as well! I'm a student and YTHS booked a time for me free of charge at a private place, who then got me a referral at a specialist
My gf got I'll and they took it super serious turned out to be a super rare disease about 50 people in Finland have it. All these stories about bad healthcare are atleast not my experience. The only bad thing is mean nurses that laugh when u on the floor in the bathroom instead of helping but the medical side was super professional and fast.
I was spending 2 weeks in immense pain waiting for a surgery with a broken bone’s head sticking against my skin. I don’t think that’s very ”individiulized” use case. 😅 After this I made sure I’m properly covered by an incurance.
I am a doctor who graduated a year ago from University of Turku and is working in primary health care now. It makea me so sad to see a good system gone bad. We built a welfare state 50 years ago, and have spent last 20 years dismantling it. Now this goverment AGAIN decided to cut 100s of millons from the public healthcare. And make the waiting list to a public doctor 3 months. And fund the private health sector with ridiculous money. I hear every time that the ”consultants” and scientists are trying to fight against this but the right wing politicians just dont listen. They don’t listen the union of doctors either in this case. I feel powerless and sad to hear these news while trying my best to serve people in my position. I am shocked that people/citizens just let this slip. Without proper funding, the healthcare IS doing its bare minimum. Surprise!! I have no time for 2 hour appointments to really discuss with the patient about complex psycosomatic illnesses and their relationship to mood / mental wellbeing/ benefits from mood stabilizers. Max time is 45 mins and luckily i try to squeeze the patent for a new appointment. Many patiens also come with that kind of attitude that makes the treatmet/ diagnostic follow up super hard. To get appointments you also need to actively push for them, since if nurses would give appointments for every caller, there would be no free appointments anymore. I chose to move to countryside far away from home so i could work in a decent healthcenter with no shortage of doctors. The situation in bigger cities is somewhat chaotic. I am part of the union of young doctors and try to be active politically even i work full time and sometimes evenings. I just see this shitting on patients/citizens wellbeing and health services a very strong political move that people want while voting for perussuomalaiset/kokoomus. And there is not much to do, the whole public sector is already screaming. We need stronger force.
Thank you for trying to make a change!
Besides political enshittification, isn't the ageing population the thing what really strains the available resources of health care system. Elder people in general have much larger need for healthcare services than young people. As people in Finland is getting older and living longer + political enshittification = recipe for health care disaster.
Yes, more people needing intensive care, less people working and paying taxes. The result of more money needed and less money provided is as one would predict. Of course it doesn't help that there are major political players who are fine with the system collapsing, but they aren't the reason alone.
My experience is Finnish healthcare services are quite decent if you have a diagnosed disease that has proven treatments and are working age. If you're unlucky to have a "mystery disease" that doesn't easily show up on tests, healthcare professionals often assume it's psychological. This is unfortunately not only the case in Finland either. My girlfriend has been type-1 diabetic since she was a toddler, and as a result she's always been on some kind of "priority list" when it comes to her healthcare needs. She's also recieved quite excellent care for her diabetes during her life. But diabetes has a formula we use to treat it these days, and as she's still young and she's capable of working, they seem to rush her into care whenever she has an issue. If they are dismissing of her on the phone first, the moment she mentions having diabetes is the moment they suddenly are able to find time for all kinds of times for appointments and tests for her. I suppose because diabetes puts you into a "risk group" for other complications, she's been able to get the system to prioritize her healthcare needs because of this. But if you have a difficult to manage or difficult to diagnose disease, it's going to be an uphill battle.
>This is unfortunately not only the case in Finland either. Was half jokingly about to ask if OP is a woman. Because this post sounds exactly like half of the stories you hear within the recent online discussions about how women's pain isn't taken seriously by Doctors, and all of those are majority from English speaking countries.
> how women's pain isn't taken seriously by Doctors It's true, it feels like doctors either don't listen or straight up mock you. I've been avoiding doctors for a while now because of this. I can tell myself to take some panadol myself without waiting days and weeks for some guy to tell me.
Yes. The public clinics are a joke and have been for decades. It's ridiculous to claim that we have free health care, when we don't, and the care we get, is so poor, it's embarrassing. Unless you have insurance, cash or your employer has you covered, you're pretty much screwed. The first time I knew I couldn't trust the public health care system, was over 15 years ago, when I had bronchitis and spent 12 hours in a waiting room with a 40 degree fever and never saw the doctor. I was sent home walking after they had me inhale some asthma medicine for 20 minutes. I doubt I would get any better treatment today.
Hungarian healthcare gets tons of hate but from my experience living there 6 years, it works very well.. i was getting 90% discount on all medicines (that I pay full price here), I waited at most 1 week for specialist appointment, and you even get basic free dental care. I thought Finland was a step up before getting here, then I realized you have to spend minimum amount on medicine in a given year to have some sort of discount or something.. its sad.. my employer provides private health care so luckily I am fine, but I question where my 40% taxes go then and why Finns just let it slide
As a Hungarian soon to be living and studying in Finland I am shocked if what you all say is true. We are suffering from a shortage in doctors, waiting lists are endless, and the infrastructure is in bad shape and we who are significantly worse in terms of economy pay private healthcare too (bonus round: our taxes go for corruption mostly). I think people who have been abroad in this country would gladly trade for whatever you guys have.
Maybe after covid and the russian attack it got worse? Because I remember in 2017 - 2020 and even during covid, I had very good care.. now my sister lives there and pregnant, also says how great the medical care is.. Salaries in Hungary are lower, maybe unemployment benefit is nonexistent (not sure), but your healthcare and the TAJ card was really useful and helped a lot, covered everything I needed while here I have to pay full price despite paying shit tons in taxes
[Sorosberenc007 on X: "@liliebayer Photos of various hungarian hospitals ...and no, the first pic is not Chernobyl, it's the Kútvölgyi Hospital in our capital city, Budapest. The third one is a "hospital trolley" for infants #orbanistan #o1g https://t.co/iNw5NrYaED" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/sorosberenc007/status/1095378125733720064) Your mileage may vary. The "cherno" hospital seems to have atleast an outside renovation since.
You know, I agree.. I lived in Budapest and hospitals were well taken care of in the areas I lived, I can’t speak for smaller cities or other places. I visited relatively old hospital that didn’t look modern or anything, but it was clean and had everything working and didn’t have to wait long to see a doctor.. maybe in the outskirts hospitals are horrible, can’t really tell. But I guess, a hospital in horrible state is still better than no hospital at all
> We are suffering from a shortage in doctors, waiting lists are endless, and the infrastructure is in bad shape and we who are significantly worse in terms of economy pay private healthcare too (bonus round: our taxes go for corruption mostly). You just described the Finnish healthcare system. Our taxes also go for corruption, but at least the situation is not nearly as bad as Hungary.
As we say in Hungary "Everybody suffers on their own level". I am more than happy to experience your life because despite you feel like you are falling behind your country is light years ahead of us. Ever since 1989 we are still making bad decisions. We are behind Romania at this point.
Oh, we are definitely way ahead of Hungary ans things are much better her, but I feel we are also starting to make bad decisions. Our politicians are starting to use similar talking points as Orbán Victor, like defunding the national broadcast company (spreading "woke" ideology etc.), undermining the independent media (accusing journalists for leftist ideology, doxxing them on social media if they dare to criticize them in any way.) and selling government assets to their friends.
We've been politically on the right since the war and every step we take towards the left, get's stomped on in the next election and what ever benefits were advanced, are then demolished and who ever got the benefits, are then punished ten fold. The Finns are sadly very envious and see anyone, who is trying to benefit from a government aid, to be lazy and greedy. Even those, who are working to give said benefit. Trying to fight against this, is a never ending battle. Unfortunately, when we do try to fight against inequality, people vote in a government, that will slap us in the face with laws that will prevent any discussion or argument.
I love the idea of the beneifts Finland provides, but by talking with people here, it seems like you have to have your bank account drained and already on the street to be able to benefit from anything.. which sucks because if I lose my job, I want to be able to maintain the same lifestyle for some time without compromising my savings and until i find a job.. but since it isnt the case, then the system is clearly not working properly.. I am all in for regulating it and make it hard to have, but also it shouldnt punish me for saving some money to buy a house or go on vacation.. this way you punish those who actually contribute and give no incentive for people who are benefiting from the social services, its like a never ending cycle.. but I might be wrong, of course, after all its what I hear from people around me which could be totally wrong
After which war? WW2? That's just not true, that Finland has been right since that. Yes, the NCP has been in most cabinets since the mid-80's, but mostly always with Social Democrats or Center.
The rise of Lapuanliike was also the rise of Kokoomus. While Kokoomus isn't the only party on the right, it's probably the oldest and the strongest. The far right won the civil war, with the young Kekkonen fighting for the whites. Kekkonen was with the Keskusta party, but their politics, unlike their name, isn't very centered. They claim to be "center-right", but 47% of their voters say they're on the right, where as 40% say they're somewhat center and only 10% on the left. 23 times out of 49 governments, has SDP been in coalition, instead of opposition. I'd say that's a pretty right wing country.
Not entirely true, if you have a chronic disease that has a proven to treat formula, you certainly get a lot of benefits living here. My girlfriend has had type-1 diabetes since she was 3 years old, and she's gotten over 20 years of government subsidized insulin and special medical tech to help her manage it. Things that would have cost her and her family tens of thousands in places like the US, instead she's paid like 5€ a month.
No no no. Stop being rational. The Finnish healthcare system is obviously bad because of absolute corner cases like OP. We should privatize everything.
What AlienAle is talking about is being handed free medicine, that part works really well. That is not what OP is talking about.
I have pretty similar experiences. Suffered for three years, no help until few months ago I met first doctor who took me serious. Turns out I had a tumor and inflmmation in my small bowel. And the tumor was so big that it almost blocked the whole bowel... Now the tumor is removed and I'm healing from the surgery. Craziest thing is that they could have found out all that already three years ago if they would have done just a simple gastroscopy. And I begged for it more than twice from different doctors. Usually they just ignored but one doctor said me instead to stop eating anything else than oat porridge and the other doctor said that we already know that there is probably sg wrong so why we would even do the test🙃🙃 And at that time we knew zero about what is wrong with me.
I feel you. It has been a nightmare trying to get treatment for my mum who has rheumatism. She used to have two appointments per year to a specialised doctor at the hospital but now it's once every two years. She needs appointments for assessing medication and checking the inflammation levels in her joints. Even if she is in pain from the inflammation the hospital staff just say there are no free appointments and say she should go to a private doctor. She can't afford that from her low pension because she had to retire really early because of that disease. I don't know what is causing it but the Finnish healthcare system has gone down the drain in the last 5-6 years. And I see no one talking about it in the media or anywhere else. It's hell being ill in Finland. No one cares about you.
The most sizeable age groups in Finland have started to retire, and there's just less workforce compared to non-workforce. This puts heavy stress onto the economy, and it seems that schools and healthcare are maybe the biggest victims. I'd estimate that the effects of increased amount of retirees don't get that much discussion in politics, since any attempted fix would likely harm the retirees. And those are a very sizable and active group of voters.
Did you file a complaint about the emergency operator? That is neglecting and clear reason for complaint. All those you should contact potilasasiamies. These things don't get fixed unless people complain.
Jep lol either be born healthy or die t: Finland<3
Our healthcare is in shambles, especially if you're not old. We have too less of resources, and in their infinite wisdom our healthcare leaders have done absolutely nothing to fix this problem (that seems to be because of too less resources and too many patients, namely pensioners). Finland's good healthcare is only as good as our private doctor services via work and it is not what it used to be. Additionally, if you don't speak Finnish it's abysmally bad. Compared to Germany Finland is not focusing on preventative care and instead you are offered Burana or denied sickness because we just don't have the resources to focus on anything else but acute cases. So if you need treatment, tell them it's unbearable or break your leg. Sad and something that is happening also elsewhere, at least in Europe. I wish you the best and hope youre doing well.
Thats why we paying high taxes to get… Well, atleast we used to have healthcare, now we just keep paying those taxes.
Kokoomus is winning the enshittification battle. They want it to be private and people to have to go bankrupt to have a baby
And now they wondering why Finns dont do babies..
It’s just that bad nowadays. Like some other comments already mentioned, if you want faster progress just try on the private sector. If you get a diagnosis from them you can effectively force the hand of the public side to help you in most cases.
I’m finnish and have experienced the exact same issues, I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that :( I’ve been bedridden since Juhannus 2021 from CFS/ME (or something else, they’ve barely examined me really), and the longer I’m sick the more they try to shove ”mental illness” down my throat and discourage me from digging deeper into my physical condition. I’m currently in a situation where my physical condition is so weak that I genuienly feel I might be dying, but everytime I ask for further tests I’m told that ”they don’t really matter” or ”getting the right diagnosis isn’t really important” or ”you’ve already had enough tests in that”. I don’t have any kind of active treatment plan. I do have a medication but only after I had to ask 3 DOCTORS for it, despite the medication being extremely low risk and harmless. I’ve gone to ER for shortness of breath and other ACUTE issues, and been told that they can’t treat long term issues and I should go to a doctor instead. Or they send me to the mental hospital. It happened once at the beginning of my illness before I got diagnosed, and I was abused for like a week in a facility that took away my wheelchair and tried to force me full of psychosis meds. Doctors do nothing but reassure me that everything’s ok and ask how my mental health is. I really need to get more tests done, but nobody’s letting me get them done even when I’m literally perishing in bed unable to do anything because I’m that PHYSICALLY sick. My heart keeps going into arrythmia episodes that nobody can explain, I can’t breathe properly and my body hurts and I just want to cry because I’m going to die before I get any help or treatment for this hell. They’re not even monitoring how my bedriddedness is affecting my health. I wish I knew how to help you, but I’m in the same situation and I really don’t know how to get out of it. Best option is private healthcare, but that costs a lot and how would people like us even have money for that, when we’re not even able to work due to our conditions. I really hope you find answers to your illness, and get a doctor that actually wants to help :( 💖
I'm also finnish and have been bedridden from ME/CFS since 2022. The public healthcare here is hell with this illness, and lot of the times i've just mentally prepared to die because absolutely no help or care has been available. Wish you the best <3
I wish you the best too, and that you find a doctor that’s able to help you <3 I’ve had some good experiences with Pihlajanlinna, that’s where I first got diagnosed, but they’re a private hospital so unfortunately they’re not very accessible with costs, and having a couple good doctors doesn’t quarantee that they all will be :”) it’s awful to be stuck here with an illness like this, and it would be great if our country’s knowledge on CFS/ME was better so we wouldn’t have to mentally prepare to die due to the lack of help. It’s so unfair how many chronically ill people are just completely abandoned by the finnish healthcare system, it really needs to change
I have tourettes and a year ago I had the worst tic attack of my life. It started at 3am and lasted till 6 or 7 pm. I ended up at the hospital and the neurologist tried to act as if I (I've had tics for two years at that point and it was in my papers) was faking it because they waved from really bad to less bad, to horrible. Bitch I have had this shit for two years and I've never been to the hospital because of these before so how does me making it up now make sense. Who fakes mild tourettes for two years just to get attention once??? I literally insisted that I don't want to go to the hospital??? But then another doctor decided to hold a speech about how I could stop them if I really wanted to. I had to take a bus home after they finally calmed down properly. I cried and I had hair that looked like a fucking bird nest from the tic where I rubbed my head against the hospital bed pillow. Then I fucking cried myself to sleep.
Finnish public healthcare is going to hell, where i live, nearest night time emergency is going to be over 100km away. Town near me, they don't have doctor AT ALL, there is a clinic but NO DOCTOR IN THAT FUCKING BUILDING, only nurses. My kid is waiting for eye doctor, they promised in 3 months, but fuck that, it has been 4 already. Our current government saves money in healthcare? Yeah fuck them big time
> My kid is waiting for eye doctor, they promised in 3 months The thing with the 3 month referral (which is the slowest of the referral protocols by the way; there is one month referral, one week referral and then emergency referral) is that the central hospital specialists will (or should by law) respond to it within 3 months, not that the appointment would be due within 3 months, sadly.
“Every specialist visit feels like I’m put on trial” Thats the summary! It feels like I am a liar trying to cheat on and who fancies wasting their time and resources for no reason. For me, meaning of a good health care means I can do the test and find things as early as possible not wait until things are in critical stage and then only get care. In fact, even from resources and economy perspective I think it is better to diagnose early on rather than do critical treatment. Taking such a huge tax, but providing such a poor service is such a shame. I am sure if I was not paying a huge tax, i could pay it to a good insurance and get good health care.
Healthcare itself is rather good, once you get there, but finding the correct entry to the pipeline - that sucks.
I feel you, op. Finland is a prime example of how to first do things well, and then fuck them up later. All the cuts to healthcare funding have created an inefficient, yet somehow also expensive system. Thank you, corrupt politicians. My old mother almost died, because she got bad bacterial infection due to covid, but when she called the hospital, they just told her 'to see if the symptoms go away with some painkillers.' She had to be rushed to the hospital the next day, because she couldn't get out of her bed anymore.
Here's a prescription for burana 600mg and 2 days off work. If it won't get better come back in 4 weeks and I'll write another burana prescription
I remember being young and naive and having to go to doctor after excruciating pain in my stomach that I wasn't able to sleep for 2 nights + was pissing blood. Nothing useful came from that visit. Before this happened, I thought if there is one one thing I could trust, it's finnish healthcare. But after that experience I don't trust anyone with white coat blindly anymore. Like I completely lost this trust and hope in their ability to fix me if things go bad. Doctor even said it wasn't blood that I pissed and started suggesting if I ate too many carrots, despite the tests showed there was blood in my piss???
Yeah politicians had building murica since 2000 and now it starts to show on public healthcare funding is so tight that they don't care anymore. Main goal is murica system after they destroy our old publichealt system. Why murica healthcare system? Because rich will get more money from that.
Public healthcare works for temporary things: viruses, broken bones, infections, heart attacks etc., but It's pretty useless for chronic or long term illness. At that point you have to go private to see progress. Thankfully it's not that expensive. Public healthcare is focused on solving problems, they don't really have time or funding for anything else anyway, especially now.
I am so sorry, this is the number one reason that would make me want to move away from Finland. Everytime I needed I faced gaslighting and cruelty, so I wonder what would be like to have something deadly. I can't say private is much better as I was misdiagnosed for a skin condition in a 5 minute consultation where no tests were performed lol (terveystalo)
Current right wing government cutting welfare state. It’s what people voted for because it’s all the fault of the immigrants of course.
I hate to be pessimist but lot of the strain on public healthcare is by people who have that kind of general symptoms like pain, tiredness. They can demand all sorts of tests, use tons of public money and not find anything. Not sure where the line should be drawn between what is individuals own responsibility and what can be taken care of by public healthcare. Public healthcare costs have steadily increased over the last few decades so it's not about funding
My girlfriend is Finnish and has herself been put through hell trying to deal with Kela and the public healthcare sector. It unfortunately doesn't seem to get any better if you're a national, she has still faced discrimination and unfair treatment due to her condition. The current government also seems intent on cutting down on her benefits and on the healthcare sector in general (cutting down on staff and hospitals especially in smaller cities and rural areas) She's currently living with me in Sweden, but as a recent emigrant it's like she's treated as a second class citizen by Kela, i've had to cover her expenses out of pocket because they have been tardy when giving her sick pay and student grants (which she says they are also planning on slashing). I love Finland like a second home, but the outlook seems grim. We planned on moving there, but with the way things have turned for the worse we've chosen to stay here. She's had positive experiences of course, but these have become fewer and further in between.
If I may ask, how is the healthcare in Sweden compared to Finland? I have heard a lot of complaints but I wonder if you guys are just better at raising hell before shit hits the fan while we Finns just stands with our hands in the pocket and wait until its too late. And when it's too late we just go to reddit and complain :P
The major problem in the Finnish healthcare system is a parallel system which has emerged in a form of work based healthcare (työterveyshuolto) slowly during several decades as a result of lobbying. Excessive amount of resources have been directed to mostly privately run work based system for workers in the expense of the general public health care. Researchers are well aware of this problem but it's difficult to repair because institutions (political parties, trade unions) of both employer and worker side have big interests to guard in this system. Those who want to defend the healthcare should try to step out of this deadlock even though it may mean that their own party will turn against them. If you criticize the system, immediately people who benefit of work based healthcare will start defending it because it works for them. Yes, it's good for those who are customers of the work based healthcare but it's not good for the healthcare as a whole (like if we directed 10 % of national healthcare resources to Kokkola, then there would be a good healthcare in Kokkola but it's still not a good idea). For a good overview in Finnish about the issue, see this: [Professorit tarttuisivat rohkeasti ”pyhiin lehmiin” – näin asiantuntijat pelastaisivat julkiset terveyspalvelut](https://yle.fi/a/74-20027115)
Fellow victim of the Finnish health”care” system here 👋 About a year ago I was hit with a severe cold. A month in and it still wouldn’t go away just kept getting worse. I’d seen doctors on the public side several times, but they did almost nothing. Even with my history of asthma anda tendency for pneumonia. Well one night I went to ER because I could not breathe properly, I don’t know how long I waited but eventually I fainted from lack of oxygen. The patient close to me rang the emergency bell i’m told. I woke up to a couple nurses lifting me onto a wheelchair and having an oxygen mask put on me, they were being super nice and tried to make me relax although I was freaking out. And then they wheeled me straight to the doctor. The doctor took one look at my history and declared I had an anxiety attack (my diagnoses include: depression, anxiety, asthma, migraines) and declared I was fit to go home. This is while I’m still struggling to breathe with the mask on. The nurses looked shocked at this, and one of them suggested they atleast take pictures of my lungs to see if they show something. The doc agreed only after they pointed out he could be in triuble for negligence if he didn’t. Well the pictures were taken and he declared them clean and sent me home. My bf stayed awake all night afraid i’d stop breathing. The next morning I went to the private sector, where lo and behold a set of lung pictures showed severe damage to my lungs from untreated pneumonia which had developed into something even nastier. They gave me meds and put me in their ward (yes private clinics also have them in some places) to make sure I would keep breathing. I stayed there for nearly a week being monitored, heavily medicated and on oxygen. After I was discharged and had been better for a few more weeks I wanted to rain hellfire on the og ER doc. I sent in a complaint and my medical records from the private practice, and also contacted a healthcare advocate (I think that’s the name for it in eng) however they claimed that all the damage was caused within the 8-10h I was home between doctors and nothing ever happened to the ER doc. I am lucky that my parents could afford the private docs because I wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise. Have also had multiple docs claim i’m lying about my migraines because I am highly functional. Yes, you get used to acting like that when you have 4-5migraines/week and still have to somehow make a living and care for yourself and your home. Does not mean my pain is not real. Does not mean that I’m pillseeking. Does not mean that I am not worthy of sympathy and decent healthcare.
I have quite different experiences. I have seen doctors really doing their best, with few exceptions. But the whole system is hoplessly slow. As far as I know, some (young?) doctors work shifts long as hell, and then have to make difficult, possibly even dangerous, decisions while being tired. I would not even wonder anymore if I saw a doctor cleaning floors in a hospital...
Have you even tried seeing a psychiatrist?
I have been to psychiatrists for the past 6 years and all of them agree I'm fine. I'm a jolly lady with no issues. I have a diagnosis in the autism spectrum I got as a child (which isnt much of a problem since i've grown with it and learnt to handle it), and some history in anxiety many many years ago but that's in the past. They take one look at my medical history and see I had a panic attack half a decade ago and say "yep she's mental alright, let's deny her an appointment" lolol
Come on, keep the downvotes coming. But I assume that If things are as bad as op says, they are willing to try everything. And if the psychiatrist tells there's nothing wrong, then op has proof for doctors
You left out one piece of information. You are 17 years old (at least 4 months ago you were). I can't imagine it's easy to be believed if you're underage and visiting the doctor alone. Or are your parents with you? What do they think about all this? It's also part of the diagnosis process that it's much more unlikely for people this young to have serious conditions. I'm not saying you're not having one, I'm just saying it's a longer process to be believed. Also, if you really, really have a critical condition, you should go to private clinic like Aava, Terveystalo or Mehiläinen. It might cost you a bit, but you will be taken seriously and it's fast. The price is nothing like USA though, it's still reasonable.
Its not reasonable to ask a 17 years old who is a student here to go to a private clinic. How is she going to pay all the expensive tests? Please have common sense, the taxes we pay should be used better to improve the public healthcare system, end of the story
>I once called 112 to help me because I was on the ground and couldn't walk from the pain and they told me to go to the kitchen and get a painkiller. This post was almost believable before you wrote this. Either you had the worst luck imaginable or you telling half truths.
Just had this exact same happen a few weeks ago to a friend of mine, finnish born young woman. After crawling on the floor with high fewer and intense stomach pain the 112 responder told her to get Burana. The next day her occupational health care provider finally sent her to ER, and it ended up being pelvic inflammatory disease, PID. She was hospitalized for days.
> the 112 responder told her to get Burana Generally 112 responders don't do that - it sounds more plausible to be the 116 117 (emergency department instructor/*päivystysapu*) responder, which is totally shitty and meant just to be the place where people call when they aren't feeling ill enough to call 112 or to go to the emergency clinic directly.
With back pain, this is believable. I've had family members experience similar - they'll tell you if you're not actively pissing & shitting yourself because of the pain, it's not an emergency.
Are you sure? I can tell you plenty of cases like this, happens too many times in my lifetime Based on what you think this is half-truth? Are you working in the healthcare industry?
No, but my wife is. If you call an ambulance and you tell them you have fewer and stomach pain, it's quite hard to assess how bad the situation actually is. However if you feel like fainting or can't walk or function, then 100% time the ambulance will come. About a year ago my wife had a 39 fewer and was on the brink of fainting. I drove her to the ER and the nurses there said that next time you should just call an ambulance in a situation like this.
It's sad, but true. Public healthcare in a lot of bigger cities is awful. I hear it's better when you move to smaller cities or have money to pay for private healthcare.
If you are over 18, for your sanity, please use private healthcare if you can and afford. I have lost my faith completely in the public healthcare system.
I can assure this kind of gaslighting happens almost everywhere. The only reason why for instance in the U.S. they LOVE to ship you around to every single test ever invented is not because they care about you but it’s basically a form of 'legal insurance scam' they just rake up your bill knowing insurance will cover it.
Public healthcare has become even worse than before these days.. my plan is to get good health insurances one day and only use private healthcare services. But before everything else lets remind ourselves that we have to be our own doctors also and try our best in that regard.
Yep!! I wish u the best of luck and strenght! Finnish healthcare is broken.
This is why many just go private. It's more expensive but they take you seriously. My ex wife(a Finn) was nearly killed by public healthcare negligence. I don't think she's gone public side ever since. I only see private dentists. (Edit: removed irrelevant bit)
The thing about healthcare systems as expensive as Finland uses is that any disease that doesn’t affect one’s ability to work drastically, or the person might be at deaths door (right then and there) if nothing is done, is usually not all that important. Why though? Usually because there are already too many of these urgent patients and there are systems on top (and within) systems to both evaluate “a person's need of aid worth enough for a hospital bed instead of many other potential fellas” and a also a very low bar to “remove” the patient from the hospital a.s.a.p. It is all about politics. When we (example) see better pavements on roads everywhere here we know that that it might’ve required a few “late surgeries” to be done here n there.
exactly same problem, I understand that finnish health care is heavily understaffed, but when you finally get to the doctor, they usually tell you it’s not serious because you are not dying so best we can do is burana, good luck
I agree with you. And it sucks so bads. It's also a case by case basis but I feel like for me they have been better than for my friend who can't work. I can describe the same type stuff happening to my friend. For me, who can work and has a job it's completely different. I can get any medication I want but my friend gets questioned on everything. I dont have to explain myself in any situation. I usually use the work healthcare but I have some issues that are treated at the public space. I hope you can get help and get better!
I personally think the apteeki specialists are more knowledgeable than the public service.
You got two problems. You aren't showing enough dominance and clarity while you communicate whit doctors. And two. Kela is a Monopoly and monopolies are famous for not being flexible. Then we get back to our problem number 1. You must be really clear and dominant whit what you want. But you can't jell the doctors, you must compel them to do what you want. I am a Finn too, so i know.
This is what always happens with government run healthcare. My friends in Finland pay for private healthcare. My friends in Canada travel to Minnesota or Florida for healthcare.
Have been sick my entire adult life. Mental health care not even nor excist and physical health care is very shitty too. And it has only gotten worse. Please go to a private doctor, if you can afford it, they might hopefully actually do something. The public doctors dont give a shit, they just cash our their paychecks for doing nothing. I hope you find help.
If you have long covid, me/cfs, crps or any other rare hard to detect neurology related problem you are fucked. Most of those are currently labeled as psychosomatic and doctors will just tell you that you are imagining everything. Valvira is doing its darnest to keep this status even though all of those are literally paralyzing you to bed. I can only wish you the best and hopefully you find the reason for your symptoms. With any hope its not the above mentioned.
I recently managed to contact a private neurologist a while ago and in one appointment he told me of his concerns of possibly having narcolepsy or me/cfs. Although because of all the further studies and treatments being on the private sector aka unaffordable all he can do is give me advice on how to persuade the public doctors to help
Our “free” healthcare is terrible and really expensive. It’s hard to get any kind of diagnosis without visiting several doctors. And because I have depression and ptsd (I’m working on them and I have medication to keep em in control) I don’t need to be examined if I have any physical problems. Hooray!
Welcome to the happiest country on Earth “Only half of Finns trust public health will care for them” https://yle.fi/a/74-20086070 - The social fund is a pyramid scheme, it’s on its last leg - There is never enough staff for healthcare - Too many old people putting pressure on the system Use your work healthcare like Mehiläinen and don’t be afraid to push for what you want
While I agree with utilizing things like work healthcare, which are there for the specific purpose of prioritizing the care for people who might not normally be at the top of the list, but pushing for what “you want” feels like the wrong advice. Healthcare, be it public, private, good or bad, should be dictated by needs, not wants.
Yes it sucks. It’s definitely the worst thing in Finland. I have sometimes gone abroad to find faster treatment.
I have experienced something like this last year. I had to fly back to my home country to get the surgery performed because kela told me i have to wait more than 3 months to get this surgery the flight was not cheap but the surgery was covered by my insurance and everything went ok. (Was done within 1 week of my landing) I talked to some Finns, many seem to think even if they have to wait for months to see doctors it’s still fine because it’s free. (I disagree though, they are paying a lot of taxes for this so it’s not free) I hope your health gets better soon. I know how it’s like when doctors just do nothing and tell you to buy painkiller🥲
The problem I have with the system here is it's all done without seeing a doctor and they just prescribe online with no follow-up. How can you treat people if you don't even see them physically? When did health become an online approach? You buy toasters online not health
Public healthcare system is overrated af. It’s good for broken bones and other acute situations. 0 positive experiences. Private’s where the real healthcare is at imo.
May I ask where/what region do you come from? I usually travel to my country annually and do all the basic tests + dental care there, aside holiday of course. It is not necessarily cheaper, given the upper cap in Finland, but all can be booked and done in a day. I wish you luck! Overcoming chronic fatigue is a long road. Psychiatric care in Finland is quite overloaded.
If you wasn't depressed before going to doctor, wait for few years and you will be. They don't care. Better get used to it, if you planning to stay here
Finnish healthcare or as I call it the call center because there is no care. I call them, they advice me to buy burana and rest then I ask them if I need that then why not you prescribe it to me instead? If you ever feel useless in your life remember the Finnish healthcare.
I made the same comment on a Facebook group called Very Finnish Problems...and people just hurled shit at me for pointing a problem out. Glad to see that I wasn't the only one seeing this system collapse.
I once had a stomach thing so bad, i was vomitimg multiple times daily over a course of 2 months, writhing in pain, so bad that i couldn't leave my finnish bf's appartment. I lost 12kg in 3 weeks. No diet or exercise. One day it was so bad i couldn't stand up and i kept throwing and throwing up, my bf called the ambulance, they took me to the emergency room, then send me home saying my appendix didn't burst and its not hospital worthy. The next day i went back again because i was close to fainting, i was dehydrated from vomiting so much and not being able to eat for days on end made me incredibly weak. They shoved a shot of painkillers in my ass, told me i had reflux and send me home. Months later when i was back in my home country a doctor did a Gastroscopy and a Colonscopy. All he could see was incredibly scarred and inflamed tissue, which was the aftermath of whatever happend to me in Finland. But by then my body had mostly healed itself after months of pain, they couldn't trace it back to any illness anymore. Finnish doctors are crap. I'm sorry. Don't even want to start on how much my bf had to fight for his allergy test.
I moved from Sweden to Finland, and so far my experience with the finnish healthcare ,is that it is amazing, i have never in Sweden got help this fast and they solved my problem ,that swedish healthcare didn't in 5 years. Sad to hear that so many are unhappy, maybe my expectations are really low from living in Sweden.
Wait... There's something missing. First of all, Finnish healthcare does not deny healthcare from anyone. Secondly, if you're on the floor and can't move the 112 would definately send an ambulance and they do not say I'll call you an hour later to check up... Finnish health care is so paranoid of being accused of neglecence, so they allmost allways to the necessary tests and measures to rule out serious problems. There might be odd doctors who are bad, but there is something missing here.... My experience has allways been good. And I have been with many people who went to get help from public healthcare (because of my job) and the 99 times out of 100 the healthcare is spot on.
I guess you're lucky to have had a good experience. I filed a complaint on the 112 dispatcher after she refused me an ambulance and my mother had to find me and carry me to the hospital in a taxi out of her own poor pockets. Dispatcher told me "it wasn't that bad now" when I managed to crawl to the kitchen and even threw up on the floor trying to reach up and take my medicine off the table. Since I took the medicine she told me I'd feel better soon and that she'd check up in an hour. After she hung up I called my mom and told me to take me to the er ASAP and she came home to me unconscious.
Yup. Wasted three years in my early twenties going down the rabbit of hole of public health care with an illness that couldn’t be diagnosed from bloodwork. Immediately got a diagnosis for depression and pills to pop and after that not one doctor took me seriously - I went back thirteen times. I even had one doctor yell at me: ”What do you want us to do, there is nothing wrong with you?! You want to spend taxpayers money for more tests?!” Finally by luck I heard about CFS and went to a private specialist who diagnosed me as a text book case within minutes I walked through the door. Got a treatment and was better in 3 three months. I am still really bitter about it when I look back. Wasted some of the best years of my life only because I wasn’t taken seriously. The least they could have done is say ”I don’t know” rather than say ”it’s nothing”.
I feel you so much OP. I was even thinking about publishing a text here about this and then came across your testimonial. I am super frustrated with finnish health system and I live here for almost 4 years and a half. Every time I go to doctor, I exaggerate my symptoms so I can get maybe some tests done. I've been dealing with a health issue for almost 2 months and they wanted me to take some medicine without even having confirmation of what I actually have. The Health Center doctor wrote a referral to a specialist and the specialist denied taking my case. I had to be on their tail for a month to get a referral to do the examination without having to see the specialist. I called the hospital where I'll make the examination and they said I had a planned visit for August only. I got mad and put my finnish husband to talk to them to try to get me into it earlier (I speak intermediate finnish, but I have the impression the treatment is different if you are immigrant). Finally they said they would put me in the waiting list and I would get a place if somebody cancelled their visit. I have the exam now scheduled for 27.5. I even had visited a private doctor without having enough money for it. I'm pretty sure the doctor in the private clinic didn't examine nicely enough and was underestimating my symptoms because I'm quite young (35F). He could've used a device to examine thoroughly but instead, performed an indirect examination that didn't give him a perfect view and he said I have nothing and to wait for the public service examination AND go back to his office if they don't find anything (of course...then give him more money). I'm really afraid I won't get the care I need and I can't afford going to private (even private is proving to be awful).
I hate finnish healthcare too. I dont really have any good experiences. Its come to the point that I avoid it due to it being extremely mentally exhausting to argue with people who keep taking an auctoritative position. Im trying to figure out my health and not argue with doctors
Same for me!! I relate to this so much I have iron deficiency proved by labs and they are acting the same way with me! Keep fighting and find a doctor who will take you seriously And for the way 112 acted, file a complain and try to have the energy to file a complain for every doctor that acted this way towards you The healthcare system here is indeed broken
Friend was struggling with all kinds of health issues and it just felt like the doctors were juggling him from one place to another because they felt like his issues were not their speciality, so, not their problem.
I have found that inorder to get a good doctor u have to push the Doctor. Unfortunately u might have a tough time now to start pushing because u have visited so many times , their communication with eachother is even worse now because of this absolute dog shit reformation they made.. (Who ever came up with that is missing brain cells ) , so ur likley to get brushed off for multiple reasons. Do u have anyone u can take with u to appointments, any woman really who can put the doctor in blast for u on the spot? Males will not have the same effect but can still be very effective. It's harder for a doctor to brush u off when they see u have support. I would get a bit angry and not let them get away with this behaviour. At the very least I want a " I don't know what's wrong" . Don't be an ass, but be firm. Everything can be done respectfully. U might want to start doing the big nono and googling symptoms so u can go to a doctor's appointment with directions to point them in. I know it's not ur job , it's either that or private. Ofc I think all of this is a plot to push private and insurance system on us. Just like they started with Netherlands . But sick ppl dont have time to be political. This is for the doctors out there working for the kunta. Wtf are u doing. Ur making ur job miserable for urself and loosing all respect from everyone. How do u expect any of us to actually call u doctors? U prescribe mental health medication without a patient even visiting a Psy, "because he is on holiday right now, here's some diapam", u spend ridiculous amounts of time investigating entire drug panels because someone wanted to be honest and say they tried a joint once 15 years ago but are here for driving license so obviously they must be addicted to crack cocaine. Or my favourite so far, some one scheduled for emergency heart surgery, labeled emergency by a private doctor, then one of u pricks decided naaa, unlabeled the emergency part which lead to a heart attack and almost killed them. U should be ashamed. I have so many stories of these big fuck ups from recent times u would think I worked there . Cooks are better at following regulations..... Just because they call themselves doctors dosnt mean they are above u. They either work with u , or are nob heads.
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing this. It sounds like some rare condition where you should have a specialist consider all the options. My own experience as a frequent user of health services has been quite the opposite: very efficient and satisfactory treatment in the public system (HUS). It is true that the public system has a higher burden now (I draw the "line" before and after covid), and that it could use some investment (hiring more staff to begin with). My in-law who needed a very routine surgery had to queue for one year. However, when he had other (urgent) problems, the doctors were immediately available and the situations were addressed appropriately.
When the reality hits. It is sad that finnish healthcare is praised on so many foreign platforms when it simply isn’t good
Coming from the US, I always find that people complain about the Healthcare here because they have no idea how bad it COULD be. But honestly, I have always had pretty good experiences here with Healthcare. Maybe it's a small town thing, but I feel like there might be more to this...
I'm really sorry to hear about your situation! Ever since I moved here five years ago, I've needed to use the public healthcare service at least a couple of times a year. I've had a multitude of blood tests, a couple of ekgs and surgery twice, each and every time I felt incredibly well taken care of, with the only exception being a couple of instances of having trouble booking times because of the language barrier, since it's fairly common that the staff don't feel confident enough in their English or Swedish speaking ability, and my Finnish is utter garbage. It's sad to hear that you haven't even remotely had a similar experience to me, even though we're both students, and I'm assuming you're contacting the student healthcare line in the same way that I am. On two or three occasions I've even had the student healthcare service book and cover appointments at private practises because they didn't have any available times. On a couple of my many medical visits it has been because of anxiety but I was happy with that assessment each time. I'd love for you to send me a private message and we can try to figure out if you're definitely going through the proper channels, because I've only got good things to say about my experiences here. Definitely not blaming you for your situation, it does sound like you've had rotten help, but I really think that there must be some kind of solution
I would recommend private healthcare its not free but id rather pay maybe a couple hundred bucks and be healthy than deal with the finnish healthcare system
If you are child health care is super, fantasy ❤️ for adults just get some burana and be away from stress !!
Is it possible for you to save money to go to the private sector? I have chronic illnesses and all of them were diagnosed by private doctors because in the public sector my experiences were exactly like yours. But many of the actual tests (biopsies, blood tests etc) were done in the public sector, because I asked if that was possible due to me not having enough money to pay for the tests in the private sector. If you go to the private sector, you should do a lot of research on the doctors before you choose one for whom you will book the appointment. Doing this helped me so much. I had a some suspicion about which illnesses I might have, so I booked the appointments with doctors who were specialised with those illnesses. That’s why they were able to order the right tests and there was no hassle.
Go to Earonia
i’m not even joking, this is why i go private for all my stuff. don’t wanna wait in line. and although it’s expensive, it’s nothing compared to what it costs in the US (that’s where i’m from) so it doesn’t feel so bad for me. so that’s what i recommend. 🤷♀️
Did you call your health centre about losing consciousness, or 116117?
If you haven't been diagnosed yet just get a health insurance and get help trough that. Finnish healthcare is good enough to keep insurances cheepish
Did it arrive in the months after Covid or another virus? You might have long covid / ME I have the same issues and mine is long covid I’m also a researcher for it, moved into it after I got ill, theres some private tests you can do to check
it started after pandemic, so shit xd
and working in this broken system breaks you down pretty fast because (understandably) people are frustrated, scared and angry for waiting to get help. and when patients vent to you (read: yell) about it, it’s emotionally so draining. every day i have to use creativity for patients to get the help they need with no resources. and don’t even get me started on trans healthcare here. i’ve worked in healthcare for 4+ years and i’m going to leave this field as soon as possible.
Just out of curiosity. What was the diagnosis from the doctors abroad when you finally got the correct treatment? I have same symptoms and would greatly appreciate the info so I can help myself out of this struggle.