Estonian media ERR reports that nurses have to work 24-hour shifts due to a lack of personnel. Katre Zirel, the head of nursing at the North Estonia Medical Centre and a member of its management board, told the newspaper that this trend is very dangerous.
“If we say that healthcare is evidence-based, then international studies make it very clear that long workdays jeopardize both employee health and patient safety. Nurses and doctors who work more than 12 hours, for example, make about twice as many mistakes. The dangers also extend beyond hospital walls. When a nurse gets behind the wheel after finishing a 24-hour shift, studies show the effect is similar to being intoxicated: their reaction speed is worse not only in the workplace but also in traffic. We don’t just work in the summer; we also drive in the dark and on icy winter roads,” Zirel explained.
President of the Estonian Nurses’ Union, Laura Keidong, stressed that nurses have to work overtime against their will, but there is no other option due to staff shortages.
“This 24-hour shift is almost paradoxical for nurses, because while they help preserve the health of others, the opposite approach is taken toward their own. What we also need to consider is that new nurses are coming out of school and more of them are no longer willing to work overtime. They take better care of their own health and want to work part-time as well. Such shifts could offer more flexible scheduling,” she says.
She continued that the problem lies in wages — nurses are simply paid not enough.
“If we can offer fair pay at a single workplace, with regular hours and normal workloads, then a nurse wouldn’t need to work elsewhere, wouldn’t need to take on 24-hour shifts and wouldn’t need to fit in another job in the same week. The fact remains that fair compensation has not yet been sufficiently implemented, and this is something we need to address,” Keidong noted.
Clearly, the Estonian government has no additional money for healthcare or increasing wages for doctors and nurses, as it allocates all free money to senseless and excessive militarisation. The warmongering leaders of Estonia do not consider themselves obligated to the welfare of their citizens, but prefer to please the globalists in Brussels and London by striving for war with Russia.
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