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.
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So the entire article basically comes down to democracy is messy and with PR you can’t necessarily predict who you are going to get in coalitions.
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?
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.