I use Kela services a few times a year, while attending this school I have to pay healthcare fees twice a year. In addition, we receive child benefit from Kela once a month. Otherwise, I do not use Kela services, because I am permanently in working life.
Every citizen who travels in Europe or the ETA countries should have a European Health Insurance Card, and the card is also valid in the UK and Switzerland. It is important to know what the card covers and what it does not, which is why it is important to also buy comprehensive travel insurance for your trip and make sure in which countries it is valid and how long!
I have had the European Health Insurance Card on my trips since the beginning, and I have also purchased comprehensive travel insurance and increased its compensation amounts to a reasonable level!
I use the Omakanta service regularly. I can see the results of my blood tests, the doctor’s and nurse’s statements and instructions there. The most important service I use is prescription renewals. Omakanta reduces the amount of printing and sending healthcare papers enormously.
From KEVA’s services, I can see my retirement age and an estimate of what my pension would be. I am of an age where my working life pension has only started to accrue at the age of 23, but i have already started my working life at the age of 14. According to my earnings related pension statement, I would have to work for another 25 years to receive a full pension! So when i am over 68 years old it is my time to go pension! Unfortunately, I believe that the pension age will still rise by then and fewer and fewer people will be able to retire in the future. Sickness pension is more suitable for many people of working age today, especially those who work in heavy nursing care.
I first used the Ebay online store about 20 years ago. We made a joint order for car xenonlights with some friends. The first order was lost on the way. The second time the delivery arrived in Finland, but it took several months. Since then I have used the Ebay online store to buy car parts and used motorcycle parts. I have found and bought parts that are no longer available new.
EBAY VS Local Honda motorbike shop.
I compared the Ebay online store and a local Honda motorcycle local store. The product I compared was a fuel pump for my second motorcycle. The fuel pump was 120€ on Ebay, clear pictures of the product, the product number matched and so did the product information, the pump was located in Spain, Local Honda store had the same product for 750€, delivery time 1-2 months, location in Japan. I ordered the product from Ebay.
I have traveled a lot in Europe by motorcycle over the past 15 years. I make my route on the computer, find out hotels in advance and book hotels in advance. Trivago, booking.com, hotels.com services are familiar to me and I like to search for interesting hotels on them and I can compare reviews and prices. It is important for me to find a hotel with good reviews, with safe parking, wifi connection and a restaurant or shop nearby.
In 2023 I booked 4 different hotels for less than €150 for my European trip Finland t oGreece. In 2024 I looked for small villages in the mountainous region of Greece and found accommodation there very well through Booking.com and at the same time I used the Googlemaps program reviews of hotels.
Year 2026 I would like to travel more in Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia areas, I will start looking for accommodation and route there later 2026.
Well bein g report (Hyvinvointikertomus.fi)
In my working life as a wellbeing coordinator at wellbeing services county North-Savo , I contribute to the wellbeing report of the North Savo wellbeing services county area. Making the report is a statutory requirement and must be done every 4 years. After the report, a wellbeing plan is made for the next 4 years. Over the past year, I have spent a huge amount of work time making these. The wellbeing report tells us, based on many different statistics, how our area is doing and how the statistics have changed over the years. Based on these, we are able to plan a better and more prosperous North Savo!
Digitalization and the digital divide
The digitalization of our society began over 10 years ago. Many citizens may have first noticed it when the tax proposal was changed to digital form. Digitalization is intended to speed up processing, clarify forms, assist in filling them out, and save on labor costs. Since the launch wellbeing services county, social and healthcare services have increasingly begun to be digitalized.Older people nursesthome visits have also been replaced by computer based contacts in home care for the elderly. In my working life, I have also been involved in creating and implementing one digital service for the residents of our region. The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare has ordered each region to implement a service tray for residents. I have done some internal security work on it.
The digital divide is a fact in our country. We have people who are not at all familiar with information technology, they still need traditional services. It is strange that the service is only available digitally, but at the same time, Swedish-speaking Finnish citizens should be served in Swedish throughout Finland.
Another problem is that not all places have working internet connections. The 3G network was shut down last year and the 4G network still doesn’t work in every home in the more remote areas. I live 15 km out of Kuopio and remember well the time when our 4G network, , only worked at speeds below 4 megabits. I bought expensive additional antennas, updated the latest routers and increased the power of the receiver. Only 2 years ago did we get a new mobilestation nearby us and we reached speeds of 100 megabits.
Recently, the gap has been deepened by the end of updates to the Windows 10 operating system. Many pensioners have had to buy a new expensive computer that runs the current Windows 11 operating system and using it also requires a bit of new learning. At the same time, the router should be replaced every 2–3 years for information security reasons. A new router currently costs from 200 € and an internet connection costs around 30 €/month. This is already becoming too expensive for many retirees.
In my work, I see customer feedback from the wellbeing services county and there is a lot of negative feedback about these new digital services. Quite a few people say in the feedback that the services are too difficult to use, that you can never get in touch with the possible chat services and why are there so many services todays??
What did I learn?
Many of the topics in this assignment were familiar to me. I work and develop a lot of time digital services in the wellbeing services county. I also know about the problems that customers have experienced when using certain digital services in our wellbeing services county.
Getting to know the KEVA material did make me think about whether it would be worth starting to invest in a pension fund or save for retirement now! I also learned that there is still a lot of work ahead of me 🙁
Comments three interesting articles