{"id":17102,"date":"2024-01-22T13:46:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/?p=17102"},"modified":"2025-02-28T17:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T15:58:16","slug":"eus-health-workforce-without-a-doubt-worse-off-than-before-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/?p=17102","title":{"rendered":"EU’s health workforce ‘without a doubt’ worse off than before COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belgian presidency\u2019s work on an EU health workforce strategy must result in urgent and concrete action as health systems continue to lose health workers, resulting in rebellion and a hit to care offered to patients, experts warn.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organisation has highlighted that the current healthcare crisis<\/a> is multifaceted, consisting of many individual crises, including labour, mental health, education, gender equality and lack of financial investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite difficult. Across Europe, we see a lot of doctors going on the streets protesting working conditions, excessive hours and a lack of resources,\u201d Christiaan Keijzer, president of the Standing Committee of European Doctors, told Euractiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul De Raeve, secretary-general of the European Federation of Nurses, agreed: \u201cThe shortage of nurses in the EU situation today is critical, with nurses massively leaving the profession \u2013 up to 30% in some member states \u2013 and nursing students dropping out of the nursing programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every single EU country lacks health workers, concluded the European Commission in their State of Health in the EU report<\/a> from 15 December 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is an urgent need to invest in health workforce,\u201d the report reads, explaining that as the population ages, demand for health workers will further increase, while Europe faces more chronic diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, the health workforce is ageing, and educating, recruiting, retaining and re-skilling health workers is a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belgian EU presidency has announced it will take steps towards an EU health workforce strategy during the first half of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This topic was on the agenda during the previous Belgian presidency in 2010 when Council conclusions<\/a> about \u201cinvesting in Europe\u2019s health workforce of tomorrow\u201d were adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe saw it a long time coming,\u201d said Elizabeth Kuiper, a health policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, about the problems, adding that the issue should have been addressed back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Raeve argues that the main reason for letting the problem get this out of hand is that there is \u201cno political interest in supporting the nurses\u201d as well as \u201cno budget to develop a health workforce capacity\u201d, particularly due to a lack of proper cooperation between health and finance ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well-being as a top priority<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental health is also high on the agenda, and Keijzer, De Raeve and Kuiper highlight this as a main concern to address in an upcoming strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggling and short-staffed health systems have stretched health workers thinner, making burnouts gradually more common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the last ten years, we\u2019ve seen an increase in the Western world on healthcare demand from the population, but we did not very well increase our numbers of healthcare workforce because it\u2019s so expensive,\u201d argued Keijzer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, he said, doctors have begun to reduce their working hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe shifts have stayed the same, but (\u2026) this younger generation does not work full time anymore,\u201d he continued, adding that working only 0.8 of a 46-hour-per-week contract in the end corresponds to a typical working week in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These topics are also crucial among nurses, said De Raeve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we do not care for the nurses, they will leave the profession. Imagine that we have a new pandemic coming to us. Who will be there to take care of the people? I don\u2019t know,\u201d De Raeve added, saying we are now \u201cwithout a doubt\u201d worse off than before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, well-being and working conditions are key to fixing the problems and retaining people in the health sector; otherwise, training investments will be wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to approach the strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keijzer said an EU strategy should include talks on a European monitoring system showing data on the true amount of healthcare workers, shortages, and working conditions in all countries. This could then lead to investment recommendations and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collecting \u201chigh-quality and comparable data\u201d to support member states\u2019 health workforce policies and planning was already in the 2010 Council conclusions, but the experts argue the available data does not reflect reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keijzer also suggested agreeing on how many doctors and nurses are needed in each country and countries committing to training the number of workers they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t train enough doctors and nurses, you\u2019re dependent on other countries, and you\u2019re stealing health workforce trained in other European countries,\u201d Keijzer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Training and education, along with ensuring safe staffing levels, are at the top of the priorities for De Raeve and collective agreements for nurses to improve salaries and more \u201cflesh on the bones\u201d than the 2010 Council conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake sure your nurses stay in the profession by giving them a decent salary,\u201d De Raeve concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kuiper hopes the approach to the strategy will be holistic, covering data, definitions of health care professionals, well-being and sharing of best practices for the countries to find the best way to increase collaboration between health, education and economic ministries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a European perspective, we have to make this work\u201d, Kuiper said, adding,\u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t have the choice because the whole implementation of the European Health Union hinges on a steady health workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article published in Euractiv<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Belgian presidency\u2019s work on an EU health workforce strategy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/efn.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/DSC0013a.jpg?fit=2144%2C1424&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17109,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102\/revisions\/17109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efn.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}