Shared Experiences :Nordic CIS nurses learn from each other

The Cancer Society of Finland held a Nordic Cancer Counselling Meeting in Helsinki 16^th of January 2019. There were participants from six Cancer Societies; Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Faroe Islands and Iceland. The meeting was opened by Director of strategy and foresight Satu Lipponen and continued with the presentation of Secretary General Sakari Karjalainen.

The Meeting proceeded with presentations of every participating country. The main objective was to bring up things that were new in cancer counselling services or had been successful or on the other hand what kind of things had been challenging and what kind difficulties colleagues had been facing.

Many important topics were raised during the meeting. Live chat seemed to be a good way to reach hearing impaired or deaf people with cancer. It is also more and more popular way to communicate and the number of contacts was rising in every country it was offered. Language issues should be taken into consideration and the situation of ethnic minorities as well. More information with different languages should be available. Social inequality is a big question and it is very important that all services of Cancer Societies are available free of charge. It is important to find new models for rehabilitation. In addition to this an increasing number of patients with chronic cancer are returning to work and they need focused support to be able readjust. Advertising in different channels and in social media is important so that cancer patients and their next of kin can easily find services offered for them. It is also important to collaborate with public health services and hospitals.

Norwegian cancer society`s ambition to strive to be an up to date and future-oriented organization, where their users experience them as a professional, knowledge-based and “warm” organization is surely something that we all Cancer Societies in Nordic countries try to achieve.

It was great to hear from colleagues about new ideas, sightings and ways to meet the needs of the patients and their next of kin. It was also reassuring to see and hear that we had quite similar challenges and a regular meeting every other year is a great way to try to solve these problems together.

For more information regarding the Cancer Society of Finland, please contact Tutta Kosonen, counseling nurse, tutta.kosonen@cancer.fi