Low turnout for recruitment event for Finnish nurses in Sweden

Only a handful attend event in Stockholm

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"I have a two-month period of notice, after that I could go", says Maria Drufhagel, a practical nurse, during a recruitment event at the Finnish Embassy in Stockholm.
     Drufhagel, who has lived in Sweden for 18 years, plans to return to Finland - not to the mainland, but to the Åland Islands.
     Finding a job is no problem. Head nurse Bengt Michelssson of the Åland Health Care District promised her a job right away, if necessary.
     
Representatives from Åland were in Stockholm trying to persuade Finnish nurses who have emigrated to Sweden to return to their home country to alleviate the present labour shortage, and the worse one that is expected in the coming years.
     The National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES) estimates that there are more than 1,600 Finnish nurses working in Sweden. About 500 of them have left Finland since the late 1990s.
     However, only 25 nurses showed up at the Finnish Embassy event. The organisers - labour officials, such as employers of municipalities and health care districts, numbered 45, and there were also about 30 journalists who are covering the labour dispute between the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) and Finnish public hospitals.
     
The fact that the event took place at the time that Tehy was threatening mass resignations was a mere coincidence, says the main coordinator, Eures advisor Tuula Matikainen.
     The project aimed at encouraging Finnish nurses in Sweden to go back home began a year ago, although it has been conceded that returning immigrants alone will not solve the labour shortage problem completely.
     Organisers are nevertheless hopeful. "Even one would be enough", notes Kimmo Mustonen, head nurse at the Päijät-Häme social and health care district. "One nurse could bring others a couple of years later. Very many nurses moved here during the recession."
     It would be even better if the one returnee would be a midwife. Mustonen says that there is such a bad shortage of them in Lahti, that mothers going into labour after regular working hours are sometimes sent to Tampere for the delivery.
     
Mustonen is lucky: no midwives appear, but two promising potential employees do answer the call. Early in the morning, a psychiatric nurse who wants to move back to Finland, shows up at Mustonen's table.
     "The applicant has relatives in Hollola, and wants to try out first if moving to Finland might be successful."
     A six-month posting is available, and housing is found for the time.
     "I have thought about returning to Finland for a long time, but somehow I have put it off. I just don't know about Lahti. Helsinki would be a bit more like Stockholm. There wouldn't be those cultural differences", says Pentti Hoisko, who has worked as an orderly at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm for nearly 30 years.
     Hoisko is not worried about the pay level. "It would be at least as good as it is over here, and the taxes are lower."
     Maria Drufhagel, who is hoping to go to Åland, has followed the Tehy labour dispute. She believes that nursing will always be an underpaid profession.
     "Pay differences are a bit complicated. The basic pay can be higher in Sweden, but in Finland there are more extras. In addition, there are a tremendous number of part-timers here. Out of 50 employees, we have only four full-timers", says Drufhagel, whose own working hours are 75 per cent of a full time nurse.
      "It never even occurred to me that returning to Finland would be an economic problem."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  TV report: Nurses´ mass resignation to apply to about 20 hospitals (12.10.2007)
  Finnish nurse enjoys life and work in Sweden (30.9.2007)
  Helsinki area goes after Finnish nurses working in Sweden (15.3.2007)
  Finnish nurses working abroad are to be recruited back (5.4.2006)

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