Requesting Medical Records in English

maple · Post by **maple** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:09 pm

Hello
I am soon leaving Finland for good after six years of residence here.
I require my medical records and for my two kids in English so I can use them back in my home country if required.
My husband got them from YTHS because he has been a student but they are of no use(all of the papers are in Finnish language and nobody speaks Finnish in my home country)
Is there such a service by the local municipality or the ministry of health to provide patients their medical records in English? I am prepared to pay fees for this service if required.This is really urgent.

Can they post papers in my country if this cannot be processed due to Christmas holidays?

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betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:37 pm

maple wrote: Is there such a service by the local municipality or the ministry of health to provide patients their medical records in English? I am prepared to pay fees for this service if required.This is really urgent.

The information most likely only exists in Finnish. This means it must be translated. On an urgent basis I think you are best of by contacting a translator.

maple · Post by **maple** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:13 pm

betelgeuse wrote:
maple wrote: Is there such a service by the local municipality or the ministry of health to provide patients their medical records in English? I am prepared to pay fees for this service if required.This is really urgent.
The information most likely only exists in Finnish. This means it must be translated. On an urgent basis I think you are best of by contacting a translator.

Wow, that would cost over a thousand Euros if I find the cheapest translator in Finland. The pages for my husband only are over 100.

rinso · Post by **rinso** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 4:36 pm

I am prepared to pay fees for this service if required.This is really urgent.
...
Wow, that would cost over a thousand Euros if I find the cheapest translator in Finland. The pages for my husband only are over 100.

You're willing to pay for a service, but.....
Did you expect such a service for a 100+ page document to be only a few euros?

maple · Post by **maple** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:28 pm

rinso wrote:
I am prepared to pay fees for this service if required.This is really urgent.
...
Wow, that would cost over a thousand Euros if I find the cheapest translator in Finland. The pages for my husband only are over 100.
You're willing to pay for a service, but.....
Did you expect such a service for a 100+ page document to be only a few euros?

No, what I meant is that I wanted to pay the authority a fee if applicable to send me the medical records. I do not and cannot pay for the translator. In many EU countries, such as France, the UK, Germany and Spain, this information is provided free of charge to the patient. It is a legal right to have my patient's records in a legible format.
Finland is modern and less bureaucratic than all the above mentioned countries and I expect a straight forward mechanism to request and receive these medical records.

I have asked the local hospital in Turku but they did not know!

interleukin · Post by **interleukin** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:02 pm

It is a legal right to have my patient's records in a legible format.

Yeah, that means Finnish or Swedish (or Saami), the national languages. Anything else is your problem.

betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:07 pm

maple wrote: No, what I meant is that I wanted to pay the authority a fee if applicable to send me the medical records. I do not and cannot pay for the translator. In many EU countries, such as France, the UK, Germany and Spain, this information is provided free of charge to the patient. It is a legal right to have my patient's records in a legible format.
Finland is modern and less bureaucratic than all the above mentioned countries and I expect a straight forward mechanism to request and receive these medical records.

You don't need to pay a fee to access the originals in Finnish. For recent records there's a centralized database here:

http://www.kanta.fi/en/

Things that are not available through Kanta you will need to request from each entity that has treated you (municipality, hospital district, private provider etc). Unfortunately the situation with patient information systems is a mess.

biscayne · Post by **biscayne** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 2:46 pm

I don't think you will have any option other than to pay for translations. The Finnish Healthcare System is not obliged to provide records in any languages other than the official national ones.

I worked as a nurse for many years in Slovenia. We had clients from other countries who often brought their medical information or previous results to us in a language other than Slovene. In the beginning, if the information was in English or German, we accepted it, no problem, or if they wanted their results (this was in a genetics institute) in one of those languages we provided it no problem. Also, when we had non-Slovene speaking clients, we did counselling etc. in other languages when possible, or the clients brought in a friend or family member to translate. Then about 3 years ago at one meeting we were informed that all of this was illegal and had to be stopped as it could potentially lead to litigation issues. People had to bring in their own offical, court appointed translators and no material generated by us was unofficially translated, they could have it in Slovene, Italian or Hungarian as these are all official languages in Slovenia, but not English etc.

The reason for all of this was supposedly an EU law, which I admit I cannot quote to you here, but the point being that a person could potentially sue us if they felt they received the wrong information, given second hand by a friend or family member.

As an anecdote, my best friend, a nurse manager in the UK, recently told me that the NHS spends 50 million GBP on translators per year, and that Consultants (specialist doctors) have to literally hang around waiting until the translator shows up, due to the number of people who just do not learn the language (I know they cannot speak it from the moment they arrive, but I am talking about people 20 years in the country)

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 6:52 pm

Its the same thing as with "can't get an insurance because I can't Finnish", damn lawyers

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:37 pm

I would like my medical records in Chinese (traditional), Sanskrit, Carelian and Vepsian.....

You get finnish or swedish, rest is your problem.

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