Doctor shortages, low pay and overtime: Europe's hospitals are under the weather

  • 2 weeks ago
Europe is suffering from a healthcare crisis, with chronic staff shortages, low pay and overtime prompting strikes in Germany, Slovenia, and Sweden. In France meanwhile, a controversial medicine education reform has students and doctors up in arms.

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00:00Are public hospitals across Europe on life support?
00:05Hospitals are facing staff shortages, lower wages and increasing levels of overtime,
00:11prompting industrial action across the healthcare sector since the beginning of the year,
00:16which inevitably impacts patient care.
00:19In Sweden, healthcare workers went on strike for the first time in 16 years.
00:24In the end, they managed to obtain reduced working hours for those who work night shifts
00:29and a 3% salary increase.
00:32Last year, 2023, they did 3 million overtime hours.
00:40So we knew that there was a lack of nurses, midwives, radiographs and x-ray nurses.
00:49In Germany, thousands of doctors at state-owned university hospitals
00:53staged a strike after collective bargaining talks with hospital managers failed.
00:58Their trade union demanded a 12% pay rise
01:01and higher bonuses for working nights, weekends and public holidays.
01:06In Slovenia, doctors and dentists working in the public healthcare service went on strike
01:11in what has become the country's longest ever doctor strike.
01:15They withdrew consent for overtime work in a bid to pressure the government
01:19into honoring its commitments to a previously tabled health reform.
01:24In France, a measure of a different kind has sparked outrage among medical students.
01:29There will be 1,500 fewer openings for junior doctors this autumn.
01:34Working in a hospital is very, very difficult.
01:36It's very demanding on a mental and physical level, internally.
01:40And there will be fewer of us coming in.
01:42But the workload doesn't decrease.
01:45Every year, there is an adaptation of the positions compared to the number of interns present.
01:49Except that there has been a lot more duplication.
01:51Europe has more doctors and nurses than ever.
01:54However, the demand is growing at a faster pace.
01:58There is an increase of demand basically because of four main factors.
02:02The aging of the population, the increase of multi-morbidity and chronic conditions,
02:07also because of the backlogs accumulated during the COVID pandemic in terms of waiting lists,
02:13and also because of increased expectations of patients,
02:16that is creating also an increase in the demand for services.
02:20The World Health Organization Europe has warned of a ticking time bomb
02:24threatening health systems in Europe and Central Asia.
02:27In some countries, more than 80% of nurses reported some forms of psychological distress
02:33caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
02:35As many as 9 out of 10 nurses were thinking of quitting their job.
02:40In response to these challenges,
02:42representatives of World Health Organization Europe adopted the Bucharest Declaration in 2023.
02:49It calls for political action to improve the recruitment and retention of healthcare workers
02:54and increase public investment in education.

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