Long before Covid pandemic, CESI and its member organisations called for health inequalities in Europe to be addressed and flagged a problematic brain-drain effect of healthcare personnel between countries in Europe. Moreover, much as the pandemic revealed clearly, public healthcare systems are essential for well-functioning societies, but at the same time many national systems have been suffering from scarce investment, understaffing, ageing workforces and poor employment and working conditions. In order to mitigate these challenges, CESI has advocated for more investment in the healthcare professionals. As proven by scientific data, a lack of proper staffing quotas in the medical field results in physicians’ and nurses’ burnout as well a lower quality of care and increased risks of medical errors – to the detriment of patients and staff. Evidence-based research also proves that investing in adequate patient-nurse ratios can save costs for health systems in the long run.

Klaus Heeger, CESI Secretary General, said on the ocassion of an own-initiative report adopted by the European Parliament on March 8 on ‘Cohesion policy: reducing healthcare disparities and enhancing cross-border health cooperation’: “Access to different healthcare standards due to disparities in available treatment, equipment and staffing is undermining the idea of a European Health Union where an average standard of care should be put in place. The use of EU funding instruments to address this matter is an opportunity and a necessity for the EU and national stakeholders. CESI welcomes the European Parliament’s call to increasingly use cohesion policy investments for healthcare systems at a larger scale – for the good of public health systems and their staff as well as an overall balance and level playing field for healthcare provision and staff balances across the continent.”