As summer approaches, synonymous with staff reductions, French hospital staff are worried. Service closures and job cuts are already placing caregivers in a critical situation. How are our European neighbors preparing for the summer period on the health front? Examples in Germany, Spain and Greece.
Disparate situations in Germany
In Germany, each of the 16 Länder conducts its own health policy. There are therefore logically 16 different situations. In some regions like Bavaria everything is fine. It is wealthy territory and the Bavarian Minister of Health this week announced additional beds in intensive care units and other departments, while welcoming “the immense commitment of doctors, nurses and hospital staff under intense pressure for more than two years. They have, with great commitment, flexibility and creativity, achieved great things. And they deserve the highest recognition and our respect”.
Conversely, in the West, in North Rhine-Westphalia, in large cities such as Cologne or Düsseldorf, hospital staff have recently mobilized several times to the point of going on strike – which is not common in Germany – to get a bonus and a pay rise. With again different situations, some have won their case, others have not.
We cannot therefore speak generally of a German hospital system in crisis as summer approaches. German epidemiologists expect a return of Covid-19 this fall, or possibly as early as this summer, they say. For now, they have no certainty. There are 1,000 occupied beds out of the 24,000 in the intensive care units. The staff can breathe a little and count on this bonus which will be paid in July. The Bundestag passed it last week. Up to 2,500 euros for a nurse who has worked in intensive care, 550 euros for her colleague in geriatrics, 370 euros for the others. And a little less for the trainees and the volunteers who lent a hand. That is more than a million and a half people concerned in hospitals and retirement homes.
Spanish emergencies saturated
In Spain, the emergency services are overflowing. Some hospitals are talking about an increase of more than 50% in consultations compared to the situation before the Covid-19 pandemic. There are no national figures, the question of resources therefore arises hospital by hospital. The newspaper El País got down to business and published a major survey on the subject on Wednesday, May 26. According to the daily, all the hospitals consulted have never had so many consultations during the month of May.
Professional organizations confirm this: both adult emergency rooms and pediatric units are experiencing a peak in visits. And the most surprising thing is that this increase in emergency room arrivals is not accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations. This means that many Spaniards do not go to the emergency room, so to speak, for an emergency, but for a more mundane problem that normally would have to be treated elsewhere, for example in public health centres.
Why are ERs being diverted from their normal role? Mainly because patients can’t or don’t think they can go anywhere else. With the Covid, public health centers have been saturated, schedules sometimes restricted, telephone consultations encouraged and waiting lists swollen. Furthermore, staff on leave are not always replaced. Added to this is a completely unusual flu epidemic for the season. Other respiratory infections are also on the rise, this coincides with the lifting of the obligation to wear the mask indoors. And we can probably understand that we can’t imagine making an appointment for three days from now when, for example, your child has a fever at 40.
Greek caregivers denounce a two-tier system
Ten years of unprecedented economic crisis have brought the Greek health system to its knees, the three years of Covid crisis that followed have completely wrung it out, what is the daily situation. The country suffers from a cruel lack of beds in intensive care units: barely 1,000 in the whole country. Due to lack of sufficient staff due to retirements not being replaced and due to an exodus abroad of qualified doctors, a brand new hospital in Thessaloniki with a capacity of 100 beds remains closed. At Rhodes Hospital, only 247 out of 494 positions are filled. The operations are postponed for several months, the patients directed to the private sectors, paying. The psychiatric sector is neglected. The doctors are sounding the alarm bell because the new reform in progress risks aggravating the situation.
The doctors demonstrate every week and demand hiring without success. They fear the impact of a new reform which will modify the health system by modifying the procedure for taking care of patients. Emergency services should make up for the shortcomings of local medicine. Caregivers accuse the Spanish government of favoring the private sector to the detriment of the public, which is less and less functional but more and more in demand. Above all, in the middle of the tourist season, the executive is accused of favoring regions popular with tourists to the detriment of the rest of the country. They fear that these guidelines will endorse the existence of a two-tier medical system.