Helsingin Sanomat asked Paavola extensively about it after the shouting match Riikka PurraChairman of the Basic Finns, and Sanna Marinthe chairman of the Social Democrats in the election debate organized by Ilta-Sanomi on Tuesday.
Purra stated during the discussion that his discussions with nursing associations show that nurses with insufficient language skills are an “additional burden” that contributes to the exodus of professionals from the nursing profession.
“We should go into this smarter. They should have the necessary language skills when they enter the country,” he said before Marin told him.
“This is not true. These are false allegations,” the Prime Minister shouted. “I have spoken to the nurses’ associations. They are in favor of us bringing more people here from other parts of the world to work in the care sector. This is pure populism. I don’t know who you’ve spoken to – I’ve spoken to associations.”
“I didn’t get a chance to answer,” Purra said.
Paavola rejected the characterization of foreign workers as an additional burden, but he confirmed that insufficient language skills have caused problems and that the union has paid attention to the language skills of nurses recruited from abroad. He said that current legislation allows employers to assess whether employees have sufficient language skills, and encouraged the state to invest more and take a longer-term approach to language teaching.
“The question is, how do we get the nurses who come here to stay in Finland,” he told Helsingin Sanomat.
“If that is the goal, the state should do more to offer them a genuine opportunity to learn the language. You can’t continue working in any industry if you don’t know the language of the country,” commented Paavola.
He clarified that skills don’t have to be perfect as long as they are clear.
Paavola also said that the nursing sector employs a lot of weakly skilled Finnish people. Some of the Filipino nurses leave the country after their employment contract expires, possibly after living with their compatriots, and they don’t know how to say no.
“Language is absolutely critical. We should learn from what has been done in Norway, for example,” he said.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page
