Nurses leave Norway to send children to Finnish school

Time in Alta teaches Finnish nurse couple to give quality care

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By Tiina Rajamäki
     
      From the kitchen window, a view opens up to the ice-free Alta Fjord, which is lined by white fells. A ship to Hammerfest is about to sail.
      Nurse Pekka Lapinoja, 34, has been ice fishing on the fell, and now he is starting his Sunday evening activities with his family in his own home on the slope of Elvebakken.Virpi Lapinoja, 33, who has finished her morning shift as a home care nurse, is met by an enthusiastic group. Elina, 5, Akseli, 3, the year-and-a-half-old Sofia, and their nanny Kaisa Paananen are happy now that a children's Easter programme is starting on television.
     
The Lapinojas moved to Norway in January 1999, when everything was dark.
      "At that time there was no work available for nurses in Finland. Many friends on my course ended up packing butter", Pekka Lapinoja says.
      The two met while studying in Jyväskylä. Pekka Lapinoja graduated as an anaesthesia nurse in the autumn of 1996 and Virpi Lapinoja graduated as a psychiatric nurse in the spring of 1997.
     
The employment situation in Central Finland was dismal. Virpi Lapinoja got a part-time substitute position at the Saarijärvi Mental Health clinic. Pekka Lapinoja joined the UN peacekeeping forces in Macedonia.
      "A friend of mine from my course said to me that Norway offers nurses language teaching", Virpi Lapinoja says.
      Then events started moving quickly.
      She arranged an interview at the Alta public health clinic - the helsesenter in November 1998 for Pekka as well.
      The interviewers were not bothered by Pekka's non-existent knowledge of Norwegian. Alta hired two nurses at one go.
      Virpi got a job at the Alta municipal home for the elderly, and Pekka got a nurse's post at the "sykestua", or infirmary, of the public health clinic. Both agreed on 100% working hours, which is unusual in Norway. After earning money during the winter, the two got married in Finland in the summer.
      On an April Monday in 2006, Pekka Lapinoja, who is substituting for the head nurse, is sitting in his office drawing up a shift roster. He is waiting for a patient suffering from a pulmonary disease to come in for a blood transfusion.
      "What is the name of that disease in Finnish?"
     
The sykestua is a Norwegian combination of specialised treatment and basic health care. It has been developed for communities, such as Alta, which has 18,000 inhabitants, from where the distance to the closest hospital is long and difficult.
      The ward, with its warm yellow walls, and its coffee smell, seems easy-going, but its patients include senior citizens who are in poor shape, cancer patients, and patients recovering from surgery - the kinds of patients for whom nurses are in short supply in Finland.
      The ward, with a total of 13 patient beds, has 16 nurses positions, which are shared by 28 people. The ward also offers demanding dialysis and chemotherapy treatments.
      A day at the sykestua costs about EUR 250. The municipality pays for half the cost, and the state, which is responsible for specialised health care, picks up the other half.
      "During seven years there has not been a single bed sore. There is time to turn patients over", Pekka Lapinoja says.
      The Lapinojas, who have grown accustomed to the quality of treatment in oil-rich Norway, wonder if nurses in Finland have enough time to help patients. Nevertheless, they have already decided to move back to Finland. Pekka Lapinoja has been offered a job in Central Finland.
      "We want the children to go to school in Finland", Virpi Lapinoja says.
      "The return is made easier by the fact that we decided, already before our departure, to return to Finland. The pay and the work situation would not compel us go back. I miss Alta already before we have moved away", Pekka Lapinoja says.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.4.2006

More on this subject:
 BACKGROUND: Fewer Finnish nurses moving abroad
 FACTFILE: Nurses in Norway have more money to live on

TIINA RAJAMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
tiina.rajamaki@hs.fi