Patient care requires teamwork to offer a comprehensive service. For that, a doctor must be surrounded by the right personnel to carry out his mission. The sum of individual efforts always yields better collective results. In particular, there is a key element that is often overlooked even though it is important. Maybe you already know who he is and can be identified by his uniform and white hat. Do you know which countries have the most nurses in the world?

While it is sometimes thought that nursing staff are less important than doctors, they are not. In a team all have the same relevance because they complement each other. Therefore, one should not minimize one or the other, but rather seek the union of the two within the hospital.

The pandemic highlights the shortage of nurses

However, last year the International Council of Nurses (ICN) released a worrying fact. Based on an analysis there are 27.9 million registered nurses worldwide, although in reality it takes 38.5 million to properly care for the entire population.

From the question above, it is found that there are deficit of 10.6 million nurses worldwide. As a result, those belonging to these unions have to do double duty or extend their working hours to treat patients.

But although this is a global problem, some countries also stand out as countries with the most nurses. In order to make a fair comparison between countries of different sizes, it was necessary to obtain the number of members of this guild for every thousand inhabitants.

In this way, Germany is placed on top of the world for having a density of 12.9, although slightly below Australia and the United States with 11.7 each. Due to the large number of people, the work is not so heavy because the number of workers in the hospital is quite large.

Others that stand out in countries with more nurses are France with a density of 10.8 and the UK with 7.8.

Worst example in the world

At the bottom of the list are the two most populous countries in the world and where there is a serious problem due to a shortage of nurses. These are India with an average of 1.5 and China with 2.7.

Now, with regard to Mexico, the situation is quite sad as it lies in the last place in this category worldwide. Based on figures from the National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) there are 2.9 for every thousand inhabitants. Ultimately that translates into poor service for patients and tiring hours for healthcare workers.