Migration of German medical staff to Switzerland has fatal results

The migration of nursing staff to Switzerland has deadly consequences for German hospitals: in German border hospitals, the mortality rate has risen by 4.4% due to the shortage of nursing staff, according to a study. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox The study was carried out by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim and the Ifo Institute in Munich, according to a statement on Monday. It is based on a "natural experiment": the decision by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in 2011 to set a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 francs per euro. This cemented the high and now predictable wage differences between Switzerland and Germany. According to the study, hospitals in the German border region lost around 12% of their qualified nursing staff as a result. The number of patients per nurse rose by around 10%. The probability of a patient being operated on for the same medical necessity fell by 12%. As a result, mortality rose by an average of 4.4%.