Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in early 2008 the EFN and its 34 member associations have been observing the effects on nurses and nursing with watchful vigilance. The effects are obvious; an actual reduction in nurses’ posts across Europe, nurses’ pay cuts and salary freezes, diminished recruitment and retention rates, and observed compromises in quality of care and patient safety. In particular: Over half of EFN members report pay cuts, pay freeze and rising unemployment for nurses; Over a third of EFN members report concerns about quality of care and patient safety; Over one fifth of EFN members report downgrading of nursing and substitution of nurses with unskilled workers. Effectively, this has resulted in nurses all over Europe work in harder than before to maintain quality standards, while being asked to provide more for less. As nursing is a primarily female dominated profession, women are unequally and hardest hit. Crucially, nurses face the dilemma of providing safe and quality care in an environment dominated by a cost containment discourse which carelessly overlooks the real implications for patient care. Lack of equipment, reduced supplies and inadequate staffing are placing patients’ lives in danger on a daily basis all over Europe. Through this publication, the nurses of Europe call for attention to an area crucially affected by the financial crisis but to date grossly and mistakenly overlooked. While nurses across Europe struggle to maintain the high standards of care they are trained to uphold, some come to realise it is a losing battle. The EFN members urge the EU to take notice before the battle is lost.