Yes sister, no sister. Sister is a word that has long gone out of fashion when we talk about that oh-so-important profession 'at the bedside':nurses.
Since mid-March, we have suddenly heard a lot about the 'vital professions' in our country. From cleaners and garbage collectors to home care workers and pharmacists. But of course also:nurses. Quite a hefty profession, we take you through some facts and figures.
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More than 186,000 no fewer than. It is the number of registered nurses in the Netherlands. Not all of them work in hospitals, of course. Home care (think of the district nurse), care for the disabled and care for the elderly also know the profession and need it badly.
No less than 1 in 4 of the working nurses, almost 50,000 of the total number, is now 55 years or older. That is a hefty number, especially when you consider that the profession usually requires a lot of physical effort. Incidentally, some Dutch hospitals reported a slightly higher outflow of nurses in recent months. It could be that this has a direct link with the corona crisis. Radboudumc in Nijmegen reported an outflow of up to 10% of IC nurses, but the majority of these are retiring. A natural progression in that case.
