A doctor and nurse shortage is placing extra pressure on global health systems at a time when aging populations are increasing demand for services.
The OECD 2024 Health at a Glance report, released today, said 15 European countries reported a shortage of medical staff.
Across the European Union, there was an estimated shortage of 1.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives.
“The dual demographic challenges of an ageing population, which augments the demand for health services, and an ageing health workforce, which increases the need to replace current health workers as they retire, are key drivers of this shortfall,” the report said.
“Over one‑third of doctors and a quarter of nurses in the EU are aged over 55 and expected to retire in the coming years.
“Concurrently, interest in health careers among young people is declining, with interest in nursing falling in over half of EU countries between 2018 and 2022.”
The OECD report said countries were increasingly relying on recruiting foreign-trained health professionals to meet demand.
Foreign-trained doctors into the EU increased by 17 percent in 2022 compared to the 2019 pre-COVID levels, while nurse inflows rose 72 percent.
In 2023, more than 40 percent of doctors in Norway, Ireland and Switzerland, and more than over 50 percent of nurses in Ireland were foreign-trained.
The OECD warned that, while foreign-trained health workers provided a quick fix to the problem, it also exacerbated workforce shortages and overall fragility in source countries.
“In the short-term, improving working conditions and remuneration are critical to increasing the attractiveness of the profession and retaining current health workers,” the report said.
“Given the slow average growth rate of only 0.5 percent per year in the number of new nursing graduates in the EU between 2012 and 2022, attracting enough young people to meet the rising demand presents a significant challenge.”
The staff issues are being compounded by projections that the proportion of people over the age of 65 in the EU is projected to rise from 21 percent in 2023 to 29 percent by 2050.
“Life expectancy at age 65 now exceeds 20 years, but more than half of these years are impaired by chronic illnesses and disabilities.” the report said.
“This is particularly the case for women who live several years longer than men, but most of these years are lived with health issues, so there is almost no gender gap in healthy life expectancy.”
The full report is on the OECD website.
