Testing the resilience of the Greek health system faced by a Human Resources in Health (HRH) shock scenario

Greece holds the highest density per capita of doctors and the lowest density per capita of nurses among the EU countries. There is significant health worker maldistribution leading to understaffing of primary healthcare and an overabundance of specialists. However, there are numerical and geographical imbalances and shortages in specific specialties. A shock event scenario with respect to a sudden shortage of HRH (especially of doctors and nurses) crisis due to hypothetical upcoming changes to legislation regarding pension thresholds, salaries and insurance for health professionals will be piloted in May 2023. The resilience test is based on the resilience testing tool developed by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the OECD and the European Commission. Participants will include government and MoH representatives, health professionals from the hospital and PHC sector, academics, patient representatives etc. This sudden and massive loss of health workforce scenario entails a significant strain on the healthcare system mainly with regard to governance (e.g., increased need for reliable data and intelligence reporting on the distribution and availability of the remaining healthcare professionals), resource generation (e.g., health units forced to operate under unfavorable and below safety limits staffing ratios), service delivery (e.g., long waiting times for surgeries and hospitalizations and PHC units struggling to meet the demand for visits) and financing (e.g., rising healthcare costs due to the need to purchase services from the private sector). Expected outcomes refer to highlighting challenges that the Greek health system would encounter during this scenario and good practices that could be implemented to alleviate short- and long-term implications of health workforce shortage and strengthen system's resilience in view of future crises. The presentation will share actual outcomes, which will be available by the time of the conference.