Health Care in Finland

Yes, it has happened!  I have had a chance to taste the bitter pill of free, universal health care.  Not as a patient.  I still rely for my health care advice on that good old American standby--the privately-compensated personal physician.  Or, in my case, the good new American standby--the uncompensated impersonal physician.  (My own uncompensated, impersonal physician--of apparent Dutch ancestry, judging from his name--is an expert on all matters, medical and otherwise.  Though there is the slight difficulty that he feels absolutely certain, and of the strongest conviction, both for and against everything I ask him about.  I refer, of course, to Dr. N. ter net.)

 

 

 

No, my trip to the Emergency Room was in the role of helpful son-in-law.  Did I say "helpful"?  Damn it.  I keep dropping syllables when I write.  It's becoming a real problem.  I meant "unhelpful."  Obviously. 

I like to believe that everyone in this world, no matter where they live or what they have studied in school or which video games have rotted their brains, everyone has some special talent.  Mine happens to be being unhelpful.  (If you have been a student of mine, you know that I am now stating the obvious.  Which is a sure-fire way of being unhelpful.  As I said, I have a talent.)

 

My father-in-law woke up with a cold sweat and dizziness.  On the morning of the Midsummer's Day.  Meaning on the morning after the Midsummer's Eve orgy of parties, dancing, drinking, bonfires.  (And cursing the Swedes and the Russians.  But that happens every night in some Finnish households.)  The only problem with this situation was that my mother-in-law and father-in-law were two of the seven people in Finland who didn't behave on Midsummer's Eve like Silvio Berlusconi at a Bunga Bunga party.

 

 

Anyway, when my father-in-law was having trouble getting out of bed, it was not connected to immoral excess.  (I'm pretty sure this is what bothered him the most about his situation.)  It happening not only on a Saturday, but on one of the biggest holidays in Finland, the only place to have him checked out was the Emergency Room at the main Helsinki hospital.  [When I say that it's a big holiday here, I am understating the situation.  After the ER trip was over and Raija and I went out for a "what a relief" lunch/dinner, we discovered that even Hesburger (the Finnish hamburger chain that competes with McDonald's) had closed all its locations for the entire day.]

 

Our trip to the hospital ended up with a determination that my father-in-law had a bladder infection.  When you are 85 years old and/or when you are a man who has a stinging sensation when you pee [especially in the latter case], learning that you have a bladder infection is about the best possible news a doctor can give you, so this story has an excellent outcome.

 

Also excellent, though, was our experience at the Emergency Room, all things considered.  Without getting into political commentary (or any facts--I know my audience), it is interesting to see what happens when a country does not have uninsured patients or poorly insured (translation: Medicaid) patients, but rather insures all patients at the same level.  For one thing, it means that the "inner-city" hospital, as Americans know it, does not exist in Finland.  (There are other reasons for this as well, I imagine, but that would lead us into the realm of facts.  Shudder.)  Anyway, if you don't send the poor people to one hospital--inevitably, in any city, the last place you would choose to go for care--and the wealthier people to nicer hospitals, it means that people with money and influence get the same level of care, courtesy and service as everybody else.  And, based on a sample size of one, I'd say that those people assure that that level of care, courtesy and service is awfully darned good.

 

And, most importantly, there was football on the telly in the waiting area.  And I do mean real football.  Not American "football"--which all of us know is in reality a series of gang fights where opposing groups of GMO mutants stand around for 3 minutes, while one of the mutants yells nonsense syllables "Omaha" - "Blue Thunder - Blue Thunder", and then these gargoyles hit each other for 10 seconds.  Then they stand around for 3 minutes.

 

No, I mean real football--the game that is played with a foot and a ball.  And much falling down.  And dramatic demonstrations of agony--amazingly cured by the referee allowing play to continue.  It is the "beautiful game." And here are two beautiful people watching it in the waiting room at Hartmann Hospital in Helsinki (in the Alliteration district of town):

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong.  It's not like there weren't depressing aspects to spending several hours in the Emergency Room.  Actually, one depressing aspect.  The only football game on television was Japan vs. Greece.  Which was a 0-0 tie.  And not even an exciting 0-0 tie.  It was really, really depressing that we couldn't switch to France vs. Switzerland.  But that's what all my Republican friends have warned me about:  the Horrors of Socialized Medicine!

 

 

 

 

Gosh, I can't tell you how much I miss having private health insurance, especially the part of having it not covering things that it did cover because I got treatment from the wrong doctor or with the wrong permission slip. 

But on the other hand, I was able to buy a number of Ford automobiles while living in the US.  Life doesn't get much better than that, does it?

 

As for you doubters who believe in such fictions as "the well-made General Motors vehicle", let me feature just one example of Ford superiority, taken from across half the globe, in India.  The following is an actual advertisement for Fords from India.  It highlights the roomy cargo space in a Ford hatchback.  As you can see, Silvio Berlusconi has made optimal use of this cargo space.  One of many things that Ford gets right--allowing you to commit multiple felony violations while still having room left in the car for a co-conspirator.

 

Italy may be about to be eliminated from the 2014 World Cup soccer championship, but it still leads the world in the Corrupt Politician competition--and that's a much harder award to win.  Viva Italia!

 

 

(Translation:  "In the world, there are 2 kinds of people: The Italians; and those who dream of being Italian."  And this is written in French.  High praise, indeed!)