Coming back to Finland... Well, I will now talk to you about the Kela Experience. I will explain you my experience here and then my experience in Spain for exactly the same thing- both EU countries.
In Finland the medical security and the unemployment -sickness fund is ran by Kela. Now the problem is practically this: the state wants to make it very difficult for immigrants to get the unemployment money so in the first place it makes it difficult to get the Kela kortti-card. Now, this is the result: I have been in Finland 5 months now, and even if I have been doing some small work here and there, I still dont have the Kela kortti for going to the doctor. When I first went ask my kela kortti, they asked me again... my work contract. I gave it to them and then they took a copy of it and told me that the...response will come in 3 weeks. Until then, if I have to go to the doctor, they told me that I had to pay and if and when I would get the kela kortti they would give me back the money.
Now, to be honest, like I already had a bad experience with the Arvauskeskus, I am now prepared to pay a private doctor to cure me in a case something happens or fly to Greece or Spain, than "beg"them or pay them and then have to fill tones of forms to get my money back.
3 weeks passed and then it came at home a paper saying the following: They suggest me to send to them a copy of my bank account to see for example how much money I gained the last month. And then after this, they would decide whether to give me or not the Kela kortti in... 2 months time!
I talked for this with other EU people that live in Finland and they all told me that it can take up to ...1 year to get the kela kortti... Like always, they dont tell you they wont give it to you, BUT they keep asking you papers, sending you papers at home and then the procedures are taking so much time from one decision to another.
Soon I think, hopefully, I will know what happened with the Kela kortti and I will let you know:)
NOW, the same thing in Spain, Barcelona. EVERYBODY who is in the country, from the EU or not gets a free healthcare. It doesnt matter if you arrived by car, plane, walking or swimming, if you have papers or not. They will treat you and have hospital care. OK, they dont welcome you neither, after they treat you most likely they throw you out to find your way. But the idea is that they DONT want to have ill people, for the basic reason that ilnesses can spread and it is better to take care of people before it becomes worse, so it gets more economic in the end.
And now how I got the card for going to the doctor in BCN: I just went with ONLY my registration number and passport to the Social security office and they immediately gave me a paper with which I could the same moment go to the doctor! After that I went to the nearest to my house hospital with this paper and then in, I think, two weeks they sent me the card to my place with the name of my personal doctor etc. And then, I could visit my personal doctor with an appointment that I could have from telephone or internet for all the visits completely for FREE.
I hope that the Kela experience finishes here and I dont have to write more about it :)
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The KELA can be tough. Real pain in the ***.
I think that lot of depends how motivated will the officer be.
My wife is Japanese and got everything quite quickly - except one thing with KELA.
The EU card for passport was required because it was needed for staying in EU country longer than three months. It took about one month.
A lot of quicker than folks have told. I guess that she was lucky, the officer who handled her application, was really interested about Japan and even spoke little japanese.
Then started the frustrating phase, getting KELA card.
I read instructions from the internet, then called to the KELA and asked whether I am doing everything right when filling the KELA card application.
Everything was fine. Or that was how I was told.
Within one or two months, the card should come via post.
It didn't came.
When one month has passed, I called to the KELA and asked what is the status of my wife's card application.
They said that they cannot answer. Either I must have mandate to manage my wife's KELA related information or my wife should do everything by herself. Ofcourse the later option was not hard. She spoke only a few finnish words and no english.
So we had to request mandate from KELA. It took another month.
After I got the mandate, I called to the KELA - only to hear that my wife's KELA card application has been waiting for missing additional form!
No one didn't even care to inform my wife about it. No letter, no phone calls. I wonder how long we would have taken if I would not have made phonecall?
After that, we filled additional form and delivered it to the KELA. Personally.
We (actually me) asked from the official if everything is now 100% surely fine. Everything was.
The KELA card was promised within two months.
It took almost that two months to get that card.
So total process of getting KELA card was FOUR months. It could be lot of quicker if the KELA officials would have been more polite. But they really do not care.
Even if the application for some think is leaved by finnish people. I have lost my nerves with KELA couple of times only because I have waited their conclusion too long, then called and found out that whole applicant has been forget to the corner of some table and haven't yet processed...
Tagline: KELA sucks.
I wish good luck with KELA.
i am seriously interest about
immigrant in Finland. thanks so much for representation.
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