The problem is the same in practically all European countries: there is a growing shortage of healthcare personnel, particularly nurses. It shows up in the official statistics of the WHO, the OECD, and the countries themselves. The shortfall is now affecting even those countries with substantial workforces in the sector, such as Finland, Denmark and Germany.
The phenomenon is easily explained: longer life expectancy and the general ageing of the population. combined with the fact that young people are little inclined towards such a demanding and undervalued profession.
The role of agencies
The situation is particularly bad in Bulgaria, Poland, Greece and Spain. Here, the PULSE project (of which Voxeurop is a member) has spotlighted a related phenomenon: nurses are increasingly tempted (if not always recruited) by countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands.
Talking to El Confidencial, a nurse, Paloma Garzón Aguilar, hints at the reason: “In Spain they offer us renewable fixed-term contracts. In the Netherlands [we get] a stable job, a 36-hour working week and the guarantee of an annual salary increase of 7.4%.”
Paloma left her native Castilla-La Mancha to work in Ibiza, where conditions were better in the public sector, but she faced almost unaffordable rents: “I was still sharing a flat, like I did in my university days, and I couldn’t save money because I was spending everything on essentials.”
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That’s when she came across Eduployment. This Dutch company offers nurses from other countries not only language training but also the prospect of a full-time job. “To work in the Netherlands, nurses from other EU countries need decent language skills, so we get them to the necessary level”, says Selwyn Paehlig, the company’s managing director.
The courses are paid for by Dutch healthcare institutions as a response to their ongoing labour shortage. Students need only find the money for their books. “A staff shortage is why we have been working with [healthcare] institutions for 20 years, because a large part of the baby-boomer generation needs care”, explains Paehlig. The Netherlands is responding with various measures: increasing the number of places at universities, raising nurses’ salaries (by 2.5% last year), and recruiting them from other European countries.
In 2023, 1,473 Spanish nurses emigrated to another country in search of a job, according to data from the Organización Colegial de Enfermería.
A migration of blue gowns
Europe’s healthcare workers are taking off in many directions. According to Hungary’s chamber of professions, every year 2,000 of the country’s nurses and 1,000 of its doctors migrate to Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom. In such places they earn three to four times more.
A primary-care nurse in Austria can earn between €2,500 and €3,000. In Hungary, the same job earns around €900. And yet Hungary is also a destination for nurses, from places such as Serbia, war-ravaged Ukraine and, increasingly, Asian countries such as India and the Philippines.
The shortage is particularly acute in chronic, palliative and elderly care, as well as in psychiatric nursing. Added to this is another problem: the lack of replacements for retiring nurses. Zoltán Balogh, president of the Hungarian Chamber of Health Professionals, says that “there are no longer any nurses under 40 working in specialised care”.
In Bulgaria, the average age of nurses is 53 and that of midwives is 49. “Every year, 20% of the graduate nurses leave Bulgaria to work in other EU countries, mainly Germany, Austria and Belgium”, says Milka Vasileva, president of Bulgaria’s nurses union, to Mediapool. Many of those who stay choose not to practise “because they prefer a better paid job”. They also cite work overload and the unprestigious reputation of the profession.
The situation is similar in Italy, where burned-out and underpaid nurses have often chosen to emigrate to neighbouring Switzerland. Italy has at least 70,000 job vacancies and it is expected that around 100,000 of Italy’s 460,000 nurses will retire in the next four years.
To fill the gap, the government of Giorgia Meloni has chosen to import them: the health minister, Orazio Schillaci, is currently negotiating to recruit Indian nurses. Meanwhile, Lombardy, the country’s most populous region with 10 million inhabitants, is focusing its recruitment efforts on South America. And Vatican-affiliated health centres plan to take on around 1,000 nurses a year from religious universities in developing countries.
“This kind of recruitment is unethical,” Paul De Raeve, secretary general of the European Federation of Nurses’ Associations (EFN), tells El Confidencial. He considers the EU’s bilateral agreements to recruit staff from South America, Africa and Asia “a mistake”. He argues that health ministers should rather develop their own workforce, and “make nursing more attractive”.
About 4 million nurses are currently working in the EU. We need a million, if not a million and a half, more.
As an EU average, there were 8.3 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants in 2020. The figures vary significantly from country to country: 13.6 in Finland; 12.8 in Ireland; 12 in Germany; 11.7 in Luxembourg; 11.3 in France; 6.3 in Italy; 6.1 in Spain; and less than 5 in Poland, Bulgaria and Greece (3.4).
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Publish date : 2024-10-09 00:09:00
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