Interest growing but Estonia still short on nurses
An increasing number of young people want to study nursing at healthcare colleges. However, according to the labor market monitoring and forecasting system OSKA, Estonia may still face a shortage of around 770 nurses over the next decade.
In recent years, more and more people have wanted to link their future to healthcare and nursing. The number of applications for nursing programs at Tallinn Health Care College has grown in recent years, said the head of the college's nursing department, Kristi Puusepp.
"Interest remains strong. For example, if we take last summer's admissions, this year we received 140 more applications — that's about a 10 percent increase," Puusepp said.
Tallinn Health Care College received nearly 1,500 applications for its nursing program during this summer's admissions. Tartu Health Care College received a total of 875 applications for its nursing program. The number of applications in Tartu has also risen compared to last year — by about 40 percent, said Tartu Health Care College Rector Ulla Preeden.
Several factors are driving the growing popularity of nursing. Both the previous speakers and Estonian Nurses Union president Laura Keidong noted that the prestige of nursing has risen in society, while career opportunities have also expanded. Keidong added that expanding career opportunities is one of the union's goals, so that nurses who have left the sector in the past would want to return to the profession.
Although interest in nursing studies has been strong in recent years, OSKA, the labor market monitoring and forecasting system, estimates that Estonia could face a shortage of around 770 nurses over the next decade. The main reasons for staff turnover relate to issues with organizational culture and work arrangements, said the Ministry of Social Affairs' head of labor policy Katrin Kivisild.
"To this day, one reason for leaving the field is the very heavy workload. Another, cited in many analyses and studies, is a toxic workplace culture," Kivisild acknowledged.
Both Keidong and Kivisild noted that nurses still go abroad to work, mainly to Finland, but the trend is declining. Therefore, addressing the shortage will require continued analysis of work environments, while Kivisild said that the state's training contracts also provide stability for the sector.
"Right now, we have a current consensus agreement and at the end of this year, we want to sign a new one for the next four years. We also have a collective agreement for the healthcare sector, where the minimum wage for nurses has risen every year. This also gives a certain sense of stability in the field," Kivisild said.
Currently, between summer and winter admissions, the two colleges together enroll about 700 nursing students each year. A positive point is that the dropout rate is only between 7 and 8 percent.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
