HePo wrote:As Ambrosius seems rather strong opinioned with a great disregard for facts.
Healthcare in Finland
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That survey was done almost fifteen years ago. It actually was in last week's news that the people in general dislike the state of our healthcare, and hope that the recent reforms in both social care and healthcare improve the situation somehow.
A lot went down here after the economical crisis, including the quality of healthcare in public hospitals. If you allow this strong expression, the late nineties to early 2000's were our golden age when it came to medical care. Nowadays rich people generally go to private hospitals, and poor people go to the public healthcare, which is having difficulties financing its functions. This has been a publicly acknowledged problem for years, as it increases the divide between the wealthy and the poor.
Furthermore, that statistic about disposable income is distorted because most of us have to travel even dozens of kilometers by car daily, buy lots of fuel to keep our houses warm, and buy food which is very expensive here, about 30-40% more expensive than in Germany for example. A recent phenomenon has also been that wages go down, but prices continue to go up, especially the prices on food.
It is true that fewer people smoke here and may not use cannabis, but you will be surprised if you look at the statistics for alcohol consumption and diseases caused by it. Besides, a lot of us tend to go to Estonia in order to buy cheap booze. That booze is then "smuggled" through customs. Its kind of an age-old tradition here, and doesn't show up on the official statistics as official consumption because then the government doesn't know how much everyone really drinks. Most of the drinking here is done in order to get intoxicated as quickly as possible, instead of for example using alcohol for socializing. This article states Finns consume alcohol more than the average European, even officially:
http://www.paihdelinkki.fi/articles/111 ... in-finland" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" But this is beyond the point.
As for your last point, I was not saying people can become doctors without any personality tests in Finland. I was saying it is a mistake to let people become doctors without such tests in the first place, as not every country demands such proceedings from their medical schools. I also mentioned that a lot of doctors come from abroad to Finland these days. Their countries may not have such high criteria in their training, a fact which makes your point irrelevant in any case.
Johnny Dangerous wrote:Can you please provide some specifics on the last part Ambrosius? What school of psychology teaches that suffering people are weak minded losers who simply require medication? It sounds to me like you have very little knowledge of the field, or the range of things taught in it, but i'll anxiously await being proven wrong.
So by all means, tell me the specifics of what you disagreed with in your education in the field of psychology, therapy etc. I'm definitely gonna expect that you back up a bold claim like that with something.
Especially if you're going to do things like blame suicide rates on mental health professionals, you need to substantiate thay with something other than the vaguely presented claims in your last post.
Do I sense frustration in your post? Anyway, I could show you a few newspaper articles, but I doubt you would understand them as they are written in Finnish. Therefore, I'll try to explain without them.
In January, a study was published by the university of Helsinki about the most common reasons people commit suicides. Reasons that made to the top included loneliness, depression, and financial difficulties. The interesting fact was that 64% of those who killed themselves had in fact received psychological counselling and support from professionals, some even for years. The study concluded that there were faults in the mental healthcare system, and that it was ineffective in treating people.
My knowledge in psychology is indeed limited, as I never studied long enough to become a professional.But then again thanks to free speech, I don't have to be a professional in order to have an opinion.
Nevertheless, the books we had to study for our entrance exams pretty much ignored the idea of actually supporting the patients mentally, and instructed to treat eg. a clinically depressed patient by hard medication and encouraging him to play with cards. In no point was it stated how you need to be supportive, compassionate or understanding for such a person, so he can really begin to get over his depression. The whole case was a textbook example on how to treat a patient as the sickness he is suffering from. I had trouble believing my eyes when I read that part among others.
Even though I understand the card games were probably intended to offer something creative for the patient to do and disallow him to concentrate on his depressed state of mind, the part was still written in a manner which was both naive and insulting to the patient's intelligence. I cannot explain it any better to you. There were other weird statements in the book as well, which caused me to shake my head in stupor. (The book was written by a group of people, I recall Marja Vuorinen being its writer among others. I believe the name of the book would be "From the Academy to the Clinic: the Book of Practical Psychology." in English.)
Anyway, I decided to drop psychology after coming to the conclusion that the way it was being teached here didn't appeal to me. After reading the University of Helsinki's study about how our mental healthcare system seems to suffer from a lack of efficiency in treatment, I personally deduced the problem is at least partly in the education.
"What we have now is the best. He who can never be satisfied is a poor man, no matter how much he owns.
What you have results from karmic causes that you created, and what you'll gain hinges on karmic causes that you're creating."
-Master Sheng Yen