Europe’s healthcare system on the brink of collapse: medicine shortages in Germany and France

European countries, which have had a bad test in the field of health since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, are facing a new crisis. In many countries, shortages of healthcare workers, strikes and unavailable medicines have brought the healthcare system to the brink of collapse. The death of some patients who waited long hours for critical examinations, especially in the last few weeks, revealed the extent of the crisis.

According to media reports, the waiting time in some emergency services in European countries reaches 90 hours, while patients being treated in corridors and the serious shortage of medicine supply cause reactions.

Big crisis in three countries

France is one of the countries where the red alert is given due to the capacity problem in the hospitals and the lack of personnel. In some parts of France, patients who apply to the emergency room wait at least 12 hours, sometimes 90 hours, to be treated. While many health personnel do not return from their leave due to both Kovid-19 and seasonal diseases in Germany, it is stated that there are no empty beds in both adult and pediatric clinics of hospitals. The drug crisis in the country has not been resolved, either. Another European country experiencing a crisis in the field of health is England. In the country where the number of people waiting for treatment exceeds 7 million, the British Doctors Association says that the situation in emergency services is chaotic. According to the British Medical Association data, 500 people die every week in emergency rooms due to delayed intervention.

Healthcare workers protesting the crisis

The crisis in the health system has caused health workers to take to the streets in protest in many European countries in recent months. While health and social workers in France went on strike across the country to protest the lack of staffing and funding and demanding wage hikes, tens of thousands of nurses in the UK took to the streets demanding a fair wage increase in the face of rising cost of living and inflation. In Italy, health workers took to the streets in November and protested due to the problems experienced.