Migration of German medical staff to Switzerland has fatal results
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Migration of German medical staff to Switzerland has fatal results
The migration of nursing staff to Switzerland has deadly consequences for German hospitals: in German border hospitals, the mortality rate has risen by 4.4% due to the shortage of nursing staff, according to a study.
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The study was carried out by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim and the Ifo Institute in Munich, according to a statement on Monday. It is based on a “natural experiment”: the decision by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in 2011 to set a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 francs per euro. This cemented the high and now predictable wage differences between Switzerland and Germany.
According to the study, hospitals in the German border region lost around 12% of their qualified nursing staff as a result. The number of patients per nurse rose by around 10%. The probability of a patient being operated on for the same medical necessity fell by 12%.
As a result, mortality rose by an average of 4.4%. The negative health consequences were unevenly distributed: the increase mainly affected older and acutely ill patients. Mortality increased particularly sharply in emergencies such as heart attacks and sepsis, where it was 11.6% and 17.7% respectively. In the affected German regions, life expectancy fell by 0.28 years, while it continued to rise in the rest of Germany.
+ Concern at Swiss dependence on older and foreign doctors
No positive effect in Switzerland
The study also investigated whether the migration of nursing staff led to positive health effects in Switzerland. However, no corresponding increase in life expectancy was found in the Swiss border regions that benefited from the influx.
The study analysed all inpatient hospital cases over the period from 2006 to 2017 in order to determine the effects of the shortage of skilled workers on mortality and life expectancy. The study is currently available as a working paper from the participating research institutes and has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Adapted from German by AI/ts
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