EU says redeploying midwives as nurses rests with Member States

Brussels – The EU is ageing, maternity wards are closing, and midwives are unable to retrain as nurses due to obstacles to the recognition of their professional qualifications. This is a growing problem that the EU is seeking to address by leaving it to Member States to resolve. Given that healthcare is a matter of exclusive national competence, the European Commission – partly out of respect for the Treaties and partly to avoid friction with national capitals – intends to leave things as they are, even though healthcare workers in maternity wards are increasingly seeking new roles within hospitals.

Poland knows this well, an exemplary case that has become the subject of a parliamentary question, in which the sponsor Marcin Sypniewski (ESN) denounces that the country “is seeing the progressive closure of obstetric and gynaecological units, leading to thousands of highly qualified midwives losing their jobs.” At the same time, the Polish healthcare system suffers from a “chronic shortage of nursing staff.” Now, the issue is that midwives often have “extensive skills acquired during their studies and many years of professional practice, including in the departments of surgery, general medicine, anaesthetics and intensive care.” Added to this is the completion of specialisation courses in surgical and anaesthetic nursing, yet these professionals “face barriers to these qualifications being recognised in other branches.”

The European Commission takes note, but goes no further. The directive on the recognition of professional qualifications sets minimum training requirements for accessing the profession of
nurse responsible for general care across the EU, and “the Commission does not intend to modify any of the minimum training requirements for health
professions which are provided under the Directive,” said the Executive Vice-President responsible for Skills and Quality of Work, Roxana Mînzatu. If Poland and countries in similar situations are seeking solutions to the problem, they must look for or devise them at the national level.

https://www.eunews.it/en/2024/10/21/health-in-the-eu-the-challenge-of-the-shortage-of-doctors-and-nurses-kyriakides-attract-them-from-third-countries/

Under the Directive, Mînzatu insists, “bridges between different health professional career paths can be set at the national level for equivalent training in terms of content and level to the ones required for nurse training.” Not only that: under the same legislation, she points out, “Member States may grant full or partial exemption based on a case-by-case assessment via academic recognition to professionals wishing to change or evolve in their professional career path.”

These two suggestions are a clear call for a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach. If, regarding the recognition of doctors’ qualifications, the EU intends, at the very least, to speed up the procedures, no action is to be taken regarding midwives who are to be redeployed elsewhere. In short, if Poland is unable to redeploy midwives to other hospital departments, that is its own problem, one that Warsaw must address, in keeping with national competences that Brussels has no intention of encroaching upon. The case of the Polish midwife, however, once again highlights the phenomenon of Europe’s ageing population in all its aspects and all its critical issues.

English version by the Translation Service of Withub