Europe must step up efforts for healthy ageing, says OECD
Published: Monday, Nov 18th 2024, 17:40
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Europe must step up its efforts to promote a healthy ageing population. According to the OECD annual report on health in the European Union and associated countries, this will help to better overcome difficulties such as the shortage of nursing staff.
"Life expectancy at the age of 65 is now more than 20 years, but half of these years are affected by chronic diseases and disabilities," states the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is particularly true for women, who live several years longer than men, but spend most of these additional years with health problems.
According to the OECD report, healthy ageing requires physical activity in particular. In the EU, however, only 22% of people over the age of 65 are sufficiently physically active according to the criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the OECD, there was a shortage of doctors in 20 European countries in 2022 and 2023 and a shortage of nurses in 15. In 2023, more than 40 percent of doctors in Norway and Ireland and 39.5 percent of doctors in Switzerland had been trained abroad. The same was true for more than half of nurses in Ireland and a quarter (25.8%) in Switzerland.
According to the report, Switzerland ranks first in per capita healthcare expenditure in 2022 with 5630 euros per person, ahead of Norway (5376) and Germany (5317). It is in third place when looking at the share of healthcare expenditure in gross domestic product (11.7 percent).
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