Time to address the root causes of the Great Resignation of Women Health Workers!

New York, 22.9.2023 - Rede von Anne Lévy, Direktorin BAG anlässlich des von Women in Global Health und der Schweiz organisierten Side Events im Rahmen der 78. UNO Generalversammlung, Schweizer Mission, New York – Es gilt das gesprochene Wort.

Dear Delegates,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, allow me to congratulate Woman in Global Health on the excellent report - “The ‘Great Resignation’ of Health Workers” – demonstrating the need for urgent attention to the issue that brings us together this morning. I thank you for convening these distinguished experts and keeping this important topic high on our agenda.

The Covid-19 pandemic, ageing populations and increasingly difficult working conditions are just a few of the reasons that cause the great resignation of health workers that disproportionately affects women.

The endorsement of the Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage during yesterday’s High-level Meeting provides us an important momentum to move forward in addressing the root causes of this great resignation. But we need more than just political commitments, we need action.

I would therefore like to focus on some specific examples from Switzerland, as we have recently reached some important milestones.

In Switzerland, 83% of the health workforce are female. It is known that approximately 40% of qualified nurses will leave the profession before retirement age.

As a measure to appeal to and maintain nurses and health workers in the profession, Switzerland adopted the so-called “Nursing Initiative” in a popular vote in November 2021. The objective of the initiative is threefold:

• Firstly, recognition. The nursing professions must be recognized as an essential and central component of health-care. This is important to be able to ensure the allocation of necessary and sufficient resources.
• Secondly, quantity. We need to train and educate more nurses and health workers to address the occurring needs of an ageing population and so the initiative thus aims to increase the number of nursing personnel in Switzerland.
• And thirdly, quality. The goal is to ensure that nurses have the ability to work according to their training and competencies and that they benefit from good working conditions. This will contribute to maintaining a high quality of care.

However, as important as it is to have these objectives, the implementation is of course key. To achieve these ambitious goals, the nursing initiative is being implemented in two stages. The first stage comprises of an education and training offensive campaign with an envelope of 1 billion francs to be invested in education of nurses during the next eight years.

At a second stage, the professional circumstances in health workforce professions shall be addressed by 1) providing working conditions that meet high requirements, 2) offering opportunities for professional development and 3) providing appropriate remuneration for care services. From the very beginning and throughout the implementation, the close collaboration with all stakeholders, such as the Cantons, educational institutions and professional associations, is crucial.

An additional, very important element, which aims to address the needs of unpaid care work providers, which in Switzerland are predominantly women, are various initiatives to improve compatibility of work and family life. For example, the provision of childcare services or modularized training and continuing education, shall allow professional development alongside the family.

Finally, various measures will be put in place in order to develop certain skills and implement new digitalization tools. These measures should contribute to relieving healthcare professionals and lightening the workload.

Now whether they apply to the examples from the Swiss context or any other local, national or regional initiative, I believe it is important that we ask ourselves the right questions:

• How do we make sure that we are tackling the right root causes?
• How do we ensure, that the set objectives will translate into tangible results?
• How can we use different examples from varying national contexts to improve the situation of female health workers globally?

After having given a few examples from the Swiss context, I hope to hear many more from all of you. I am looking forward to hear the panelists’, and the audiences’ view on some of these questions mentioned just now.

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The stakes are too high not to act - we must address the root causes of health workforce shortages now. Nationally, and also as an international community.

Thank you very much.

Letzte Änderung 22.09.2023