{"id":216521,"date":"2025-10-11T10:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T10:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/216521\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T10:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T10:22:11","slug":"europes-health-system-under-strain-as-doctors-and-nurses-face-mental-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/216521\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s health system under strain as doctors and nurses face mental health crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The landmark survey<\/a>, funded under WHO<\/a>\/Europe\u2019s project with the European Commission \u2013 coinciding with World Mental Health Day<\/a> \u2013 analysed nearly 100,000 responses from 29 countries, from October 2024 until April this year.<\/p>\n

The key finding is that doctors and nurses are working in conditions that harm their mental health and well-being \u2013 also impacting patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the mental health crisis among our health workers is a health security crisis, threatening the integrity of our health systems,\u201d said Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO\u2019s Europe Director.<\/p>\n

Work conditions fuelling anxiety, depression<\/p>\n

The numbers reveal systemic problems. One in four doctors work over 50 hours a week and a third are on temporary employment contracts \u2013 a situation strongly linked to increased anxiety over job security.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, doctors and nurses show double the prevalence of suicidal thoughts compared to the general population.<\/p>\n

One in 10 said they had thoughts of being \u201cbetter off dead\u201d or \u201churting themselves\u201d in the past two weeks, the WHO analysis shows.<\/p>\n

Such unsafe work is directly linked to poor mental health.<\/p>\n

For the one in three doctors and nurses who experience violence, and the rest who work consistently long hours \u2013 depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are common.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe chose a path of humanity, but that does not mean we stop being human ourselves,\u201d said M\u00e9lanie Debarreix, a radiology resident from France.<\/p>\n

Despite the worrying figures, three quarters of all doctors and two out of three nurses expressed a strong sense of purpose and meaning resulting from their work.<\/p>\n

\u2018Unbearable pressure\u2019<\/p>\n

The survey shows that 11 to 34 per cent of health workers are considering quitting. This puts patients at risk of experiencing longer wait times and reduced quality of care, WHO said.<\/p>\n

A past WHO\/Europe report<\/a> found that already in 2022, recruitment of health and care workers was not keeping pace with rising demand, putting unbearable pressure on the overall system.<\/p>\n

Europe is projected to have a shortage of 940,000 health workers by 2030 according to Dr. Kluge.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir well-being is not only a moral obligation \u2013 it is the foundation of safe, high-quality care for every patient,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The report outlines actionable steps that can be taken to address the crisis including zero-tolerance for violence in the workplace, reforming shift patterns and ensuring access to high quality mental health support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The landmark survey, funded under WHO\/Europe\u2019s project with the European Commission \u2013 coinciding with World Mental Health Day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-216521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}