The status quo: rising premiums—increasing shortage of health workforce

As recent contributions in the media show: the Swiss population is confronted with rising premiums for health insurance and an escalating shortage of health workforce. Investing more money into the health care system cannot be an effective or efficient solution as already around 25% of the Swiss population need subsidies to be able to afford health insurance. Importing workforce from abroad can neither be the right way to fill the gaps while the coming cohorts of students are smaller and interest in nursing is not increasing. In a recent interview, Daniel Scheidegger, past president of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, pointed out: “Bei der Gesundheit finden heute immer noch alle: Wenn es mehr kostet, kostet es halt mehr – es geht ja um den Menschen. Aber ein grosser Teil des Geldes fürs Gesundheitswesen wird ja eben nicht dafür eingesetzt, um Menschen gesund zu machen. Gewisse Politikerinnen und Politiker sagen dann, man solle nicht nur über die Kosten, sondern auch über den Ertrag sprechen. Schliesslich arbeite jede sechste Person im Gesundheitswesen. Das Argument führt aber nirgends hin. Natürlich können wir das Ganze immer grösser aufblasen. Probleme wie Personalmangel in der Pflege und der Grundversorgung bei gleichzeitigem Spezialistenüberangebot haben wir damit aber nicht gelöst.» (Translation of the author: "When it comes to health, everyone still thinks: if it costs more, it costs more - after all, it's about people. But a large part of the money spent on health care is not used to make people healthy. Some politicians then say that we should not only talk about the costs, but also about the returns. After all, every sixth person works in the health sector. But that argument leads nowhere. Of course, we can always blow the whole thing up bigger. But we have not solved problems such as a lack of staff in nursing and primary care with a simultaneous oversupply of specialists.”) (Interview zu überlasteten Spitälern: «Wir müssen weniger Medizin machen» | Tages-Anzeiger (tagesanzeiger.ch)

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