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Care for Covid sufferers in Estonia
Photo: Eero Vabamägi / imago images / Scanpix
Is the pandemic exacerbating the shortage of nursing staff?
The World Association of Nurses thinks this is very likely.
Because of the corona pandemic, more and more nurses are turning their backs on their jobs.
The pandemic could lead to "a mass exodus from work" as early as the second half of the year, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) warned on Thursday.
At least 3000 nurses in 60 countries have been shown to have died of Covid 19 disease.
The actual number is likely to be significantly higher.
Because of burnouts and stress in the pandemic, millions of professionals are considering a career change, as ICN boss Howard Catton explained in Geneva.
The nursing staff had been driven to physical and mental exhaustion by the pandemic and had experienced "mass trauma".
"They're getting to the point where they've given everything they can."
Unclear data situation in Germany
There are currently 27 million nurses working worldwide.
Already at the beginning of the pandemic there was a shortage of six million nurses.
In addition, four million skilled workers will have retired by 2030.
If the fears of the ICN are confirmed, the global shortage of skilled workers could rise to almost 13 million, according to Hatton.
"We could be faced with an abyss," said Catton.
The ICN, which represents more than 130 national professional associations, called for better pay for caregivers.
In Germany, according to a media report, thousands of nurses have left their jobs since the beginning of the corona pandemic.
Hospitals are affected as well as the elderly, reported the newspapers, which belong to the "Funke Mediengruppe", citing figures from the Federal Employment Agency.
Accordingly, the number of employees in care fell by more than 9,000 between the beginning of April and the end of July 2020 - this corresponds to a decrease of 0.5 percent.
However, these figures are of limited informative value: the majority of the decline affects nurses in hospitals who are suffering from canceled operations and low occupancy in the corona pandemic.
It is unclear what proportion of the decline is due to the withdrawal of employees from the professional field.
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beb / afp