Lower income countries in the EU have become what you call feeder nations for their wealthier neighbors. With a single market comes an ability for high-skill workers to go elsewhere and they do. We started this conversation with this idea of a social contract in Europe that people feel that they have cradle to grave healthcare coverage. How is this crisis affecting the kind of public trust in the healthcare systems? I think more than one in ten doctors were educated elsewhere, Romanian doctors are the biggest immigrant group.
Europe’s universal healthcare systems have long been held up as models for other parts of the world. But in many countries they are now under extreme strain. Chronic underfunding, an aging population and labor force, and continuing fallout from the pandemic mean these systems are sometimes failing their patients.
Bloomberg reporters Naomi Kresge and Jonas Ekblom join this episode to explain how this happened and what governments are trying to do about it. And Dr. Tomas Zapata of the World Health Organization talks about how European nations can rebuild the healthcare workforce before it deteriorates.
Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK
Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.