ANALYSIS – Whether in France, the United Kingdom or Spain, healthcare networks are cracking, due to lack of staff, funding or lack of organization, under the weight of growing expenses.
Severely tested during the Covid, European health systems have resisted. But the pandemic has exposed pre-existing weaknesses. Beyond their different methods of organization and financing, they all find themselves confronted with at least three revolutions which plunge them into a deep crisis.
First of all, Europe is facing a major demographic transition linked to the aging of its population. Not only are the large baby-boom generations reaching old age, but life expectancy is also increasing. This “epidemiological transition” results in older patients, with chronic and multiple pathologies, in greater numbers. As a result, care is increasingly complex and requires the coordination of many actors, from health to social. “We no longer die of heart disease at 70, but of other pathologies at 80. And in the meantime, we’re having cataract surgery, we’re having bypass surgery, we…