Europe’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses is growing and could create challenges for health systems in the coming years, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a new report.
The WHO’s European region, which covers 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia, is projected to face a shortfall of 950,000 health workers by 2030 – and has been turning to immigration to bridge that gap.
Between 2014 and 2023, the number of new doctors in the European workforce nearly tripled, while the number of nurses rose fivefold, according to the report.
During that time, the number of foreign-trained doctors rose 58 per cent and the number of foreign-trained nurses increased by 67 per cent. Germany and the United Kingdom accounted for most of that growth.
By 2023, 60 per cent of new doctors and 72 per cent of new nurses in Europe’s labour market had been trained abroad. That includes both health workers from neighbouring European countries as well as those from Asia, Africa, or the Americas.
The shift has created a stark divide: countries in eastern and southern Europe are losing health workers to western and northern countries, exacerbating shortages in some areas while filling them in others, the report found.
“This is not just about numbers,” Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, head of WHO Europe’s country health policies and systems team, said in a statement.
“Behind every migrating doctor or nurse is a story of ambition and opportunity, but also, often, of strain on families and on the national health systems they left behind,” she added.
These challenges could intensify in the coming years due to the rising demand for medical care among the ageing population, as well as retirements in the health sector that may be difficult to replace. In some countries, more than 40 per cent of doctors are aged 55 or older.
That will “inevitably ramp up the pressure for active international recruitment,” the report said.
WHO officials called on countries to boost efforts to retain their health workers and improve their workforce planning for the future.
They said policies should address the various drivers and impacts of different types of international work, including long-term relocation, short-term contracts, and daily cross-border commuting.
“Health worker migration is a reality in Europe’s interconnected labour market, and it must be managed more fairly and sustainably,” Azzopardi-Muscat said.
