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I moved to Finland believing it was a progressive dream. It hasn't turned out that way | Mike Watson

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

In 2018, moving to Finland seemed like a no-brainer. One year earlier I had met my Finnish partner while working away in Oulu. My adopted home of Italy, where I had lived for 10 years, had recently elected a coalition government with the far-right Matteo Salvini as interior minister, while my native UK had voted for Brexit. Given Finland’s status as a beacon of progressive values, I boarded a plane, leaving my lecturing job and friends behind.

The current government, formed by Orpo’s National Coalition party (NCP) last year in coalition with the far-right Finns party, the Swedish People’s party of Finland and the Christian Democrats, has been described as “the most rightwing” Finland has ever seen – a position it appears to relish.

Deputy prime minister and finance minister Riikka Purra – the Finns’ party leader – has been linked to racist and sometimes violent comments made online back in 2008. The party’s xenophobia is clearly influencing policymaking and affecting migrants. As a foreigner, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a certain chill as anti-immigrant rhetoric ramps up.

6 comments

  • In re: medical -

    I'm uninsured because the only insurance I had available to me at the time was about $11,000 annually if anything happened where I needed insurance (that's between the premiums, the annual deductible, and the out of pocket maximum). I have a torn rotator cuff. It was >80% torn when I got an MRI in late August. It might be fully torn now, because it doesn't hurt very much anymore. I tore it in May of this year, and yeah, it took me a few months to be able to get an MRI, and then a few weeks for them to deliver the results (even though that should have been under a week). I need surgery. I got a quote for $16,300 and managed to pony up the cash from long term savings. Then surgery was cancelled by the clinic. I rescheduled and it was sent to a hospital instead of a clinic; the new quote was $49,000. That was three weeks ago. I have another consult next week.

    It's been about six months since I tore my rotator cuff. I should have been able to get in to see a doctor and get an MRI immediately, but I couldn't have afforded and ER visit on top of all of the rest of this. I don't even know if it's repairable at this point.

    Complaining about long waits, given the alternative, seems really, I dunno, privileged?

    • Complaining about long waits, given the alternative, seems really, I dunno, privileged?

      Oh, so no-one who has it better than the person who has it the worst can complain?

      You've no idea how fucked the healthcare is in certain parts. Just an hour ago I was talking to a friend who shared a story about having a wisdom tooth removed. An inexperienced dentist, a small healthcare station. He removed the crown, but couldn't get the roots out, and there were no other dentists left for the day, so he sent my friend home with some ibuprofen. With open nerves, bleeding in his mouth.

      He was home for an hour or two and went to the ER.

      Currently I've been waiting for several years, if not actually decades, in a way.

      So excuse me if your healthcare is even worse, but I think we've the right to discuss how this shit could be improved without some asshole coming along to tell us to check our privilege.

      A psychiatrist on call at an ER got a guard to throw me out after I told him I was afraid I'd hurt myself oe others. Then when he started throwing me out, I asked what happens if I hurt someone? His answer: "don't try to make this my responsibility". Like motherfucker, that's is literally in your job description.

      I made a formal complaint, as did my friend for his tooth operation. Both got answered with "yeah nothing was done wrong".

      At least in the US you can sue people over shit like that.

      The police also broke my rights and abused me, and the supreme court sided with me. Compensation? Not even an apology or a letter informing me the cops actually did break my rights. I had to read it from a fucking newspaper.

      https://www.hs.fi/suomi/art-2000009654524.html

      And that was probably the smallest infringement they committed, but as they prevented me from filming (and weirdly had "lost" all the pictures they took and the security cam material when I asked for them in court, with a lawyer), I didn't have proof of any of it, and the police obviously denied everything.

      In the US I'd be living off the compensation for a good few years if not my life by investing it nicely. At the least I would've got vindication. Now they just got away with it, and people don't even believe me about the abuse, despite me having a few photos of the cell covered in my blood.

      So you know, we live in rather different societies, with different problems and different privileges. Perhaps let's support the downtrodden we all are instead of competing who has it the worst?

      • In the US, you would need to start off by determining that the care was below standard before you can sue for malpractice. In the case of the dentist, it sounds like the dentist did what he was capable of doing; unless there were oral surgeons that were on-call, what would you reasonable expect? In the US, that wouldn't be an emergency, because it's not going to kill you to wait--in pain, admittedly--for 12 hours for an oral surgeon. I suspect you'd have a hard time winning a malpractice claim under US law. (Malpractice usually has to be pretty egregious to win.)

        Sure, you can sue. But my guess is that most attorneys are going to look at that, and charge you, rather than working on contingency. That means that you pay up-front, rather than them taking a percentage of winnings. That's what usually happens when they don't think they'll win.

        The police also broke my rights and abused me, and the supreme court sided with me.

        That would be quite rare in the US. The overwhelming majority of police abuse cases are decided in favor of the police, and when they aren't, someone is usually dead or permanently crippled. The financial payout is usually going to the survivors. Wrongful arrest? That's usually met with a shrug. People regularly die in police custody in the US, and the police investigate and find themselves innocent.

        Is it bullshit? Of course. Police should be trustworthy. Doctors should be trying to offer the highest standard of care at all time. Wealth and power shouldn't play into any of that, and it's despicable that it usually does. Is what Finland has still better than what the US has, and is likely to have (esp. if Trump ends up winning)? Absolutely. Would I emigrate to Finland if I had a job that was in-demand and thought there was any possibility I could learn Suomi fluently, even if it meant conscription? Absolutely, without hesitation.

    • I assume you're American?

      I don't think anyone is saying that Finnish wait times are worse than the deplorable system in the US with (by far) the highest per capita cost in any OECD country with one of the lowest healthcare access rates.

      So sorry you're caught up in it. That sucks. I hope it turns out well for you.

6 comments