EFN urges governments to not downgrade nurses and risking citizens’ lives to save money!
12th May, Florence Nightingale’s birthday celebrated for International Nurses’ Day,
Nurses are the largest occupational group in the health sector, but can nursing in the EU celebrate today?
“Innovations in healthcare can contribute to health and well-being of citizens and patients, (…) and can lead to more effective ways to organise, manage and monitor work within the health sector as well as to improve the working conditions for healthcare staff“,
National governments within the EU Member States keep on cutting health budgets on the back of nurses’ salary, on nurses’ posts, compromising the quality of care and patient safety. Many EU Member States (Malta, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, … and UK) governments are today replacing general care nurses – DIR55 nurses – with lower qualified staff with lower salaries so not complying with the Directive 2013/55/EU, preventing them to move freely in the EU based on mutual recognition of professional qualifications.
EFN is not surprised at all infringement procedures are to be launched, related to non-compliance with the Directive 55. Fortunately, nurses can rely on EU legislation, holding governments back from downgrading nurses. On this International Nurses’ Day, the EFN is calling on the European Commission, the European Parliament and Council to support nursing as a profession, and to value the work of 3 million nurses in the EU, highly valued by its citizens, but not so apparently by its politicians.
Recent books on Nurses and the EU:
For more information, please contact
Dr Paul De Raeve,
Secretary General of the European Federation of Nurses Associations,
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