Ever thought to live or work in a psychiatric house?

For the first time in my life I had the opportunity. I woke up early on Tuesday May 15 to accompany 22 year-old Anna Feletto and 23 year-old Laura Barbares, from Höyhtyä, where they live, to the psychiatric centre in Kiiminki. Two Italian nursing students, Anna and Laura spent three years at the University of Padova, then three months at Oulaskangas, and later moved to Kimiinki in the Oulu Health and Social Care district. We took the bus to Kiiminki, as they do every morning. I found myself nervous about to spend time with people suffering from problematic pathologies.

The rehabilitation centre, when we arrived, was three buildings composed of a general meeting area, staff offices and a purpose-built patient residence, where they spend most of their day. The house looked well-furnished inside, like a family home.

Laura said that the furniture was to create a familiar atmosphere that, in every particular, as much as possible, would positively influence the patients. Before their daily activities begin, I’m introduced to the staff: ten nurses including the two Italian student nurses, 25-year-old student paramedic Juho Tolonen, and director Raija Auer, 52, who’s been a nurse in Kiiminki since 1995. They have eight patients, they say, most of them with schizophrenia, depression, or bipolar disturbances – caused, most of the time, by situations as complicated and familiar as you might expect. Raija explained that, in this building, patients ranging from 18 to 65 start in September and finish therapy in June; almost half of them come back each season to restart the therapy again.

At 9 o’clock each morning, the different daily duties begin: cleaning the house, cooking, music, handicrafts on the hand loom, or carpentry. The patients decide their programme each day at 9.00 in a meeting room, aided by some of the nurses. According to Raija, the nurses’ purpose is to motivate guests to develop their own activities, cooperate with each other, and achieve a state of independence, little by little. In her experience Laura and Anna, the first foreign nurses to work in Kiiminki, are dynamic and passionate about helping the staff and the facilities. They help the patients during the day, and are there for all the crises – showing an experience beyond what Raija expects of their years.

The girls are in Oulu and Finland because they choose to be. They’d heard that Finnish education and technology was good, and wanted to improve their English. Speaking another language all day, say Anna and Laura, is a good teacher, especially with people in need of help, whose depression is repetitive. Laura expected aloof behaviour, but says that little by little she gained their trust and confidence. Three days ago, for the first time, one of them told her ‘grazie,’ which is ‘thanks’ in Italian. In these cases, she says, politeness is not common, and a courtesy is always a touching moment.

Anna agrees, but adds that the system here is different than in Italy, where nurses don’t speak directly to the patient about their problems. Here nurses invite patients to speak about any problem at any time, and doctors and nurses collaborate closely. Complicated moments, she says, are frequent during the day, particularly because of language difficulties. But there are also many positives; for example, when patients decide what they want to do during a day. And they can change their activities frequently, she says, to keep busy and their minds away from their problems. Activities stop at dinner time, and curfew is around ten o’clock, when all the patients go to their own bedroom.

Between 0.7% and 1% of the population in Finland nowadays have schizophrenia or bipolar disorders. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects people between 15 and 45 because of the absence of light during winter, according to www.terveystikirjasto.fi . Research is developed at the psychiatric department at the Oulu University of Medicine every year.