The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) is a confederation of more than 40 national and European trade union organizations from over 20 European countries, with a total of more than 5 million individual members. Founded in 1990, CESI advocates improved employment conditions for workers in Europe and a strong social dimension in the EU. Most of CESI’s affiliates are employed in the different fields and levels of the European, national, regional and local civil and public services. As such, CESI also represents health care and nurses’ unions across Europe.

Nursing professionals provide an invaluable contribution to our healthcare systems, yet still too often their value is not enough recognised and they remain largely an invisible and heavily burdened part of our care sectors. The COVID-19 pandemic has showcased how dependent citizens are on the nurses’ ability to perform with commitment, professionalism, bravery and on time. Even before this crisis CESI was advocating for more investment in the nursing profession, in order to mitigate the challenges health workers are facing due to care drain and understaffing, work overload, and a lack of access to sufficient technological and protective equipment.

In the EU-28, according to the World Health Organization[1], the shortfall of health workers in the overall sector was estimated at 1.6 million in 2013 and is predicted to grow to 4.1 million by 2030.

Understaffing among nurses, work overload and lacking technological and protective equipment poses risks and real consequences for both nurses (in terms of stress, illness, absenteeism), patients (in terms of morbidity and mortality) and the sustainability of public finance and public health systems (in terms of long-term economic costs).

To address the causes of this and  to mitigate its adverse consequences, CESI, on the occasion of today’s International Nurses Day, puts forward again the following demands to policy makers:

1. A target of a common average nurse-patient quota must be established in the EU Member States.
2. The EU’s financial and economic governance system must be rendered more sensitive to allow Member States to finance this without being penalized by the Stability and Growth Pact.
3. EU social legislation must be reviewed to allow for better and safer employment and working conditions for nurses, with a view to better staff attraction and retention in the sector.
4. EU funding for social partners and trade unions is necessary for awareness-raising campaigns to increase the public appreciation of the profession of the nurse.

Today, on May 12th, the International Nurses Day, CESI asks to turn our appreciation and applauses during the Covid lockdowns into action for all the nurses who continue to show up for work, despite clear limitations, all in order to save people’s lives.

Find here an in-depth position paper explaining why the understaffing in the nursing profession needs to be addressed a.s.a.p..

[1] World Health Organization (WHO), Nursing and midwifery: Data and statistics. https://www.who.int/hrh/resources/pub_globstrathrh-2030/en/, accessed on February 17 2021