Thank you Päijät Häme Central Hospital - Not such an unpleasant
experience
It has been
said, that I complain too much. Is this true? Well, my primary
source of income is from teaching business English so, if I am rude
to a customer or unable to fulfil my obligations as a teacher, I
would expect to lose that particular contract; and rightly so.
However, in my experience, this is not universally true. There is a
lot of bad service and faulty products on the market.
Regular readers
of this column will have noticed that I like to complain about my
Housing Association. Then there is my television. Less than five
years old, it has a faulty starter chip. When I turn the television
on, I have between one and ten seconds to select the channel, volume
and any other settings I require. After this time the television
‘locks’. Thereafter, the only way to change the channel/settings is
to turn the television off and start the process again. My
girlfriend actually believes this to be positive as it prevents me
flicking through the channels every few seconds!
Apparently,
this is a common problem with this particular model and make of
television. One of my customers recommended a TV engineer to me.
The engineer was one of the nicest men I have had the pleasure to
meet. Unfortunately, his diagnosis was not so nice. He confirmed
what I already knew. The only way to replace the faulty chip was to
replace the entire motherboard. This would cost €250 plus labour.
As my television is not digital and not worth €250, I decided
against having it repaired and will wait until later next year
before buying a new television.
To complain
about my car would take the rest of this article. Suffice to say,
during the first two years of its life, it had numerous faults,
including a missing part! Now four years old, during the last two
years, there have not been any major problems.
Surprisingly,
many Finnish people know even less Finnish than me. Adjacent to the
footpath leading to the front door of my apartment building there is
a big sign “huoltoajo sallittu”, “service vehicles only”. Countless
inconsiderate people ignore this sign, parking right outside their
door, saving them a walk of less than 100 metres from the car park.
This is especially annoying late at night when residents are trying
to sleep.
However, it is
not all doom and gloom. During the recent past, I have read a lot
of ‘horror stories’ about the Finnish health care system. These
stories detailed long waiting lists, lack of cleanliness and
outbreaks of the hospital bacteria MRSA all not helped by lack of
investment. Finland’s spending on health care as a share of GDP was
7.4% in 2003 compared with the OECD average of 8.8%.
My own recent
experience of Finnish hospitals is far more pleasant. I recently
had to undergo a small nose operation at the new day surgery of
Päijät Häme Central Hospital. I found the attention to hygiene and
cleanliness exceptional. It was spotless.
The operation
itself was very minor and involved the shrinking of the lining of my
nasal passages. I have never much liked hospitals and was
incredibly nervous. Fortunately, every member of staff with whom I
had contact had excellent English skills. I was treated
professionally and courteously; every detail was explained to me
meticulously. In many ways, I was made to feel like ‘royalty’ - the
service and help I received was impeccable. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank all the staff involved publicly. They
made what potentially (for me) could have been a very unpleasant
experience totally stress free.
It may be true
that the Finnish health care system is under funded, but I maintain
that it is excellent value per Euro. Imagine how good it could be
with greater investment.
Finally, it may
be too early to determine the success of my operation but hopefully,
now that I can breathe more freely, I should be able to improve my
skiing speed by 10 percent - and that is before any improvement in
my technique!
Mike Bangle’s
column is published on these pages every second Monday. He is the
owner of Talking English language consultancy and can be contacted
at mike.bangle(at)phnet.fi
Word List
to
fulfil |
täyttää
ehdot |
obligation |
velvollisuudet |
contract |
sopimus |
faulty starter chip |
rikkonainen käynnistysnappula |
flicking through |
selailla |
to
confirm |
vahvistaa |
motherboard |
elektrononinen emolevy |
suffice
to say |
sanottakoon vain |
adjacent to |
viereinen |
inconsiderate |
epähieno, tahditon, ajattelematon |
doom
and gloom |
kauhistuttava, hirveä |
cleanliness |
puhtaus
, siisteys |
GDP |
Gross
Domestic Product |
spotless |
putipuhdas, tahraton |
to
shrink |
kutistaa, pienentää |
nasal
passages |
nenä
käytävät |
courteously |
kohteliaasti, yställisesti |
meticulously |
huolellisesti, tarkasti |
impeccable |
moitteeton, virheetön |
to
under fund |
alirahoitettu |
Note: GNP is
bruttokansantuote there is no translation for GDP?
|