For the 2023/2024 academic year, 43,871 people wanted to study Nursing, but there were only 10,532 enrollments. That is, only one in four people who wanted to access this university degree achieved it. For this reason, and considering that it is an “attractive profession”, nurses ask that the number of university places be increased to put an end to the “structural deficit” of professionals, therefore, according to data from the General Nursing Council (CGE) Spain needs 123,000 more nurses to reach the levels of the rest of the European countries.
«There is a deficit of Nursing students to cover real needs. We must consider increasing the number of students in universities, but with investment. A step was taken to increase the number of doctor positions, but this investment has not been made in nursing,” denounced Diego Ayuso, general secretary of the CGE, at the press conference to present the report on the x-ray of the nursing profession. of the year 2023.
According to Guadalupe Fontán, coordinator of the Spanish Institute for Nursing Research, the nursing positions offered by Spanish universities should at least double so that our country reaches levels similar to those of the rest of European countries.
“In our country we have been suffering a serious shortage of nurses,” denounced Florentino Pérez Raya, president of the CGE, who has described the situation as “alarming.” Our country, he insisted, is “light years away” from the rest of the countries in Europe. In fact, according to the data presented, the ratio in Spain is 6.3 nurses per thousand inhabitants, while the European Union average is 8.83. “Spain is in sixth place from the bottom,” Ayuso lamented.
Spain has 345,000 nurses, of which 77 percent work in hospitals, 19 percent in Primary Care, 1.8 in specialized training and 1.5 in Emergencies and Emergencies. «There is a lack of professionals in all healthcare areas. In Primary Care, the number needs to be doubled to be able to carry out a comprehensive approach to care in the family and in the community,” Ayuso launched.
“It is totally insufficient”
In addition to working conditions, those responsible for the CGE attribute this lack of professionals to the “insufficient” number of specialist positions. “We only have six specialties developed in Spain, totally insufficient to respond to the needs of the population,” says Ayuso. However, the number of places is much lower than it should be, the nurses denounce. Thus, for the next EIR (resident internal nurse) exam, for example, only 92 places are offered for the specialty of geriatric nursing in an increasingly aging country or 351 for mental health nursing. «It is totally insufficient. “We have to go for it and create new places,” says the general secretary of the CGE.
But the ratios of nurses are also very different between autonomous communities, since while regions like Navarra have 8.87 nurses per thousand inhabitants, others like Murcia only have 4.8 professionals per thousand inhabitants. «Citizens do not have the same access in all autonomous communities. There are first-class citizens and second-class citizens in health care,” stated Pérez Raya.
Talent drain
Furthermore, the nursing profession has to face another problem that has been brewing for years: the flight of talent to other countries seeking better working conditions. According to the report, in 2023, 1,473 nurses trained in Spain requested the necessary certificate to practice outside the country, which represents around 15 percent of graduates. Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom were the countries that received the most applications.
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