Union Worried About Foreign Nurses' Finnish Skills
Image: YLE
Finland's main social and health care union Tehy says it is worried that foreign nurses do not have a good enough grasp of Finnish to be working in Finland. Nursing recruiters say the current requirements are adequate.
Recruiters working in the Philippines and Estonia have their own training programmes to bring nurses up to sufficient levels of Finnish.
But Tehy says the requirements are murky.
"That's the problem, nowhere does it say what exactly is the required language level. There is a huge difference, depending on the employer," says Tehy's chief of international issues, Sari Koivuniemi.
Opteam, for example, recruits small numbers of qualified nurses from the Philippines. They participate in an intensive nine-month Finnish course before coming to Finland.
"The selected nurses are currently in full-time Finnish language courses which will last until next spring," says Opteam deputy CEO Minna Harmala-Vanhanen. "Their schedule is ultimately determined by how quickly they reach the required level of Finnish."
Health care recruiter Medipower, for its part, says it has increased the amount of language training at the request of both employers and trainees, and now uses an EU-standard test. Nonetheless they have some sympathy for Tehy's concerns.
"It's not unfounded, but you have to take a look at how each company works." says Medipower regional chief Jenni Pelkonen. "With us, the employers go to Estonia to meet the nurses before taking them on board as trainees."
YLE