Why are so many European health care workers revolting?
One of the enduring themes of 2023 is the hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers across Europe taking to the streets to strike, protest, and voice their anger.
Workforces across the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France have been demanding higher pay and better working conditions. Critics brand the labour withdrawals as disruptive bordering on dangerous, the demands unrealistic and financially unviable, and the tactics as militant. Unions argue that staff have been chronically undervalued, ignored, and disrespected by governments for years and that patients are already suffering.
The ripple effect of industrial action can be seen throughout the continent. For the first time in history, nurses at the Royal College of Nursing in the UK, and as well as nurses in Portugal, participated in nationwide strikes. France is seeing doctor surgeries close as GPs stage a series of strikes and Spain’s capital Madrid is now a regular scene of demonstrations and large-scale marches.
But despite months of industrial action, the path forward remains foggy since for the most part, governments appear to be waiting out the strikes or in some cases, straight up denouncing them. Workers aren’t showing signs of budging anytime soon either; many are fearful that services are being dismantled in favour of private providers.
How did we get here?
Many countries have their own unique systems, but what is commonplace across all markets is the impact of war in Ukraine, aging demographics, a shrinking workforce and a pandemic which exacerbated the chaos and discontent. Cast your mind back to February 2020 where the world watched Italy battle in the eye of the Covid storm, marking the beginning years of serious hardship and uncertainty for the whole of Europe.
Inevitably, it was healthcare workers who felt the full force of Covid and who placed themselves at the greatest risk on the frontlines. In the UK, the ‘Clap for your Carers’ campaign received enormous public support. Fast forward two years, ‘claps don’t pay the bills’ is a regular chant on picket lines.
Huge swathes of workers are seeking greener pastures elsewhere, and sure enough, waiting patiently in the wings are countries like Canada and Australia offering drastically higher wages and more flexibility. In order to plug the workforce gap, European countries are now competing in emerging markets to recruit foreign workforces which, in turn, does little to help those markets plugging the European gap. The unsustainability of the current model has been laid stark and bare.
Better training is certainly needed. But better funding would certainly help too – and with purse strings being held tightly it is hard to see where and when a solution to the current unrest will come. Compromise, at least for now, seems unlikely.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Michaila Byrne or call 0207 183 3779.
