Since the beginning of the pandemic, our health and our health care system have once again moved to the forefront of interest: healthcare professionals in particular. For this reason, the subject was discussed in Parliament in an interpellation.
The DP welcomes the government’s commitment to revalue the health and care professions, said Gusty Graas in his speech. The Ministry of Health has therefore created the position of Chief Nursing Officer, who is the direct contact for health and care staff in the Ministry and their concerns are thus given more political weight.
In future, more efforts must be made to improve the attractiveness of different professions and to communicate them to the outside world. In this way, young people should be more enthusiastic about the sector.
At present, many nurses and auxiliary nurses have too many administrative tasks. Time they lack for the patient. That needs to change because the patient belongs at the center of the system.
In future, our country will face a shortage of staff in the health care sector. At present, we can only compensate for this shortcoming by resorting to foreign personnel, which makes our country extremely dependent on foreigners. Over 62% of the people in the regulated health professions do not come from Luxembourg.
Even today, e.g. there are not enough staff in the nursing homes and more specialist staff is needed for the implementation of the gerontological plan and the palliative care plan. In dialogue with the professional organizations, the government is therefore developing measures against this shortage.
This includes the Bachelor of Nursing, which Luxembourg is so far the only country in the EU to not offer. The bachelor would valorise this profession and thus motivate more young people to chose that career. This would allow to transfer more competencies to nurses, which could relieve doctors.
Nursing assistants also need to be given more perspectives, e.g. for a career change as a nurse.
The healthcare professions are absolutely system-relevant for our society. This is why politics must now commit itself to healthcare professionals.
