European healthcare needs immigrants
15 January 2025
Relentless public discourse about restricting immigration in Europe often seems to miss an important detail: our healthcare systems are completely dependent on skilled workers who immigrated here. Take Germany: in 2019, almost a quarter of healthcare workers in Germany migrated or came from families with a history of migration.
The entire system would be on the brink of collapse without foreign workers, especially in rural areas and geriatric care, where workers from abroad make up a third of all staff. One of the most common origin countries of foreign healthcare staff is Syria, which might be news to some German politicians suggesting sending Syrian immigrants back to Syria following Assad's collapse.
Other European countries are in similar situations: A quarter of all nurses working in the UK came from abroad. Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, and Sweden also have many foreign-trained doctors. Yet despite widespread dependence on them, foreign healthcare workers still face disproportionate difficulty.
Besides being subject to racism and discrimination, they often struggle to have their qualifications recognised in local systems. Germany requires at least two exams and professional German language skills, and doesn’t recognize specialization training from abroad.
 | Toyah Höher As their populations age and health workers retire or quit due to worsening employment conditions, many European countries scramble to recruit healthcare workers from abroad. In 2022, the OECD reported a shortage of 1.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives in EU countries. Should trained medical professionals consistently leave third countries to pursue better working conditions in Europe, their origin countries face staff shortages of their own and lose out on the investment they put into training. As a result of this brain drain, public health outcomes in third countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, are under threat. While countries like Germany are essentially poaching much needed medical staff from non-EU and Global South countries, anti-immigration rhetoric and systemic discrimination are rampant throughout Europe. In reality, many of our healthcare systems simply cannot afford to lose any more of their workforce. |
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