Visits in vain

Antique icons of the Greek Orthodox Church are much coveted and sought after as they are as beautiful as valuable and yesterday one Icon from the 18th century was stolen from the Helsinki Uspenskij Cathedral. The icon in question was stolen during the church’s’ opening hours with tourists visiting the church premises at the same time. It was not until some time later was discovered that the icon was missing.

Quite a daring way to steal something, daring to do it with all people around but seems strange it has been done totally unnoticed.

Anyway, the Finnish public health service is world renowned for being good and efficient; well my opinion of having the experiences I have had and heard of others’, the health service is badly overrated. If you make an appointment with the doctor through the public sector, tell what you want to see the doctor about and if it happens to be something out of the normal routine it all goes wrong as you get to see some locum instead who is there just for the day and is not even allowed to take care of more than standard routine acute cases. So there was one more useless time that you saw a doctor just in vain and as the matter in question has to be taken care of you have to go see another doctor later on, what a waste of resources and money!

Another thing that bugs me with the health care is that if you get referred to a specialist they only search and determine what you were referred to them for, they do not see what causes it and this sometimes makes you have to visit hospitals and specialists many times before the right diagnosis is made, if ever, as instead of finding out what is wrong you just shuffle people around in hospitals from one clinic to another and in the end no one knows who started it. At least you have seen several specialists and hopefully had nice chats with them but it still does not get to the point, why you are ill with the symptoms still prevailing as the disease has not gone away and you still know no more than before.

So there is another way to waste the excellent resources by inefficiency, not making use of what you have got.

There is a so called health guarantee, that you in the national health care shall get to see a specialist, or a dentist for that matter, but it does not always work the way it should, you just get to wait for months, and in worst case for years over the given time limit anyway.

The acute part of the health care here in Finland is mostly excellent, when breaking a bone for instance, you are expertly and efficiently x-rayed and plastered in hardly any time at all but having something more diffuse like an unusual thyroid condition for instance you are mostly treated as a hypochondriac until someone finally really reads through your case file and thank God you are saved just in time!

It is sad that the doctors here in Finland do neither have the time nor the ability to listen to their patients properly instead of writing them off before time and making presumptions. One good thing though, you usually get your migraine medications if you just remember to refill your prescriptions in time before the next attack hits you hard. Guess this is one thing that keeps me sane.

Oh, and there is someone very dear I must not forget to wish a happy birthday today!