With many challenges facing the healthcare sector, recruiting medical professionals is increasingly difficult across Europe. Luxembourg has some unique aspects that make it particularly challenging but healthtech startup, MediNation, can help overcome some of these barriers.
Europe’s recruitment challenges are down to several reasons. Firstly, as people live longer, the burden on the healthcare sector increases and requires more staff to maintain levels of care. Secondly, in the current economic climate, lower salaries in some countries make many healthcare jobs – particularly in nursing – unattractive. Finally, the average age of doctors is increasing which means many will be retiring soon.
Whilst healthcare professionals in Luxembourg may not face low salaries, there are other barriers. Not only is the population growing, but it’s increasingly multilingual. This requires medical professionals to not only speak at least one of Luxembourg’s official languages, but also English. Added to this is insufficient home-grown talent to meet current requirements. This means the country is dependent on foreign professionals yet those looking to work in Luxembourg need to have their qualifications recognised and to gain formal authorisation from the Ministry of Health. Finally, until recently, the only place to find job openings was via the employer’s website, which reduced visibility of the opportunities available.
And that’s where MediNation comes in. Founded in July 2021, this healthcare recruitment platform was launched to create transparency in the market. As its founder, Patrick Kersten, explains, “the care sector is just as big as the finance sector in Luxembourg at around 50,000 people.” But whilst finance has an established dedicated jobsite, there wasn’t anything similar for healthcare jobs. “These sorts of websites exist in other countries, they were just lacking in Luxembourg.”
The website has been growing since its launch, with around 80% of employers in the sector – including CNS, Laboratoires Réunis and Caritas – using it to advertise roles. “We are getting positive feedback that they are seeing candidates that didn’t apply before.” Kersten explains. MediNation is designed for three key audiences. Healthcare professionals practising in Luxembourg; those outside Luxembourg looking for roles in the country; and students looking for their first role. The platform can help to highlight some of the lesser-known healthcare employers. According to Kersten, “On MediNation you get to know the employer. There are a huge number of employers which are very low profile. When you work in a social care role, it’s not in the culture to brag about how good you are. So unless you work in a specialist area, you will not already know about many of these employers.”
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Get your copy.
