Finding a mental health nurse post in Helsinki / Espoo

[mattymojo]

Hi all. My name's matt, I'm 29 and new to this site! I currently live in London and work as a community mental health nurse. I am married to a Finnish woman and we plan to move to Finland in around 18 months to 2 years time however as with most foreigners moving to Finland, the task of acquiring work seems daunting! I have been to Finland many times and have made some good friends there - and to be honest i have no hang ups about moving to Finland other than the worry of finding work. I have basic Finnish speaking skills (even when I try to practice everyone wants to speak to me in English!) and so I guess the reason for me leaving this post is to pick anyone's brains for information that may help me find a job as a mental health nurse or sign post me to anyone that may be able to help me further.

I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Matt.

[Hank W.]

Well its relieving to know you can be nursing yourself, as it is common knowledge nobody sane moves here and the queues to therapy are long. Basically as long as you're licensed in the EU with EU training you just need to get your papers accredited by the TEO. But as for finding work - as you guessed its language, language, language. They do organize "immigrant training" for nurses as that is one profession they need workers, and they have pretty much of courses in the polytechnics, so "going back to school" to get yourself networked, learn "how things are done properly", and the language your chances of finding employment are much better as the amount of people speaking loudly in public transport isn't going to warrant quite yet opening English-speaking wards. Mind you there is a "need for workers" because theres no tenures and the pay is crap.

[mattymojo]

Thanks for your reply Hank. Hmm, doesn't sound too promising though does it! Do you know if there are any particular agencies that would work specifically with native English speaking residents, say American, English or Australian ex pats? I know most Finns have a good working knowledge/understanding of English anyway but maybe as I'm a native English speaker I may have more chance with employment? I guess though that if the pay is crap it may be worth my while re-training in another field. Any suggestions with regards to work that I would be able to do with only basic Finnish speaking skills and a backround in nursing?
Thankyou, Matt.

[Hank W.]

Theres agencies employing Finnish nurses to the USA and UK.

Theres agencies in Philippines hiring nurses to Finland.

Do maths.

[sinikala]

Thanks for your reply Hank. Hmm, doesn't sound too promising though does it! Do you know if there are any particular agencies that would work specifically with native English speaking residents, say American, English or Australian ex pats? I know most Finns have a good working knowledge/understanding of English anyway but maybe as I'm a native English speaker I may have more chance with employment?

British citizens make up the largest group of native English speakers in Finland... IRC there are about 3200 of us nowadays, followed by Yanks (half that number?), Aussies, Canadians, Micks all under the 1000 mark. So your target audience is a total of 8-10,000 max. You are perhaps a bit optimistic in hoping to find a job for an English speaking community nurse for mentalists, I would be surprised if the Finnish health services employ anybody of that description, let alone have job openings.

I guess though that if the pay is crap it may be worth my while re-training in another field.

Until you can communicate effectively with the natives (this may never happen), I suspect that the issue of salary will never crop up as the interview, if you get one, will be over long before that.

Any suggestions with regards to work that I would be able to do with only basic Finnish speaking skills and a backround in nursing? Thankyou, Matt.

You may find work as the equivalent of an auxilliary as those Philipino nurses seem to be doing.

[Hank W.]

a job for an English speaking community nurse for mentalists, I would be surprised if the Finnish health services employ anybody of that description, let alone have job openings.

I'd give it time... 2020 or 2040

[Rick1]

I would specialize on alcoholism treatment (goldmine here) If I would be in Parlament I would kick all alcoholists to suomenlinna and let them be treated for at least a year (the ones caught with alcohol and caused accidents will let them escape in November or colder and they may try to get swimming to Helsinki)

[blaugrau]

Probably you are already on a course, but just in case -- you'll increase your job chances a lot if you work on your Finnish skills during the 18 months before moving here. University of Westminster (Regent Campus) offers evening classes in Finnish (for 200+ pounds a year), as well as Morely College in Waterloo, and apparently there's also evening classes at UCL. And you probably know Finn-Guild, they arrange weekend/summer courses a few times a year near London.

[Amandine.K]

I'm a registered nurse here, done my degree here as well. Though I'm on maternity leave right now and didn't work as an RN after graduation (language issue even if I could have found work in geriatric wards but I'm in the mind-frame that if I am not fluent how can I make sure I understood the patient properly or the doctors' order).

I'm afraid if you want to work in your field you need to be completely fluent, no doubt about that. They do need people in psychiatric nursing, especially men. But as you won't be able to communicate with the patient it makes work impossible right? The stories you hear about the Philipino nurses are true in the way that they received basic courses in Finnish and got work... but that's in nowheremäki in Geriatric wards as they can't find anybody else to do the job.

What are you qualifications? BSc? MSc? With a MSc I *think* you can teach in the nursing schools and they are always in need of English-speakers as it's hard to find somebody willing to do the lessons in English for the degree programs taught in English.

Try to contact TEHY (nurse union) to know where you stand in terms of qualification. It might be so that your status would not be RN and that you might want to go back to school to study towards that. That would give you some time to learn the language.