Michelle Chung, Healthcare Delivery in Switzerland Summer 2023
During my time in Switzerland, I learned about many aspects of Switzerland’s universal form of healthcare and learned what America could take inspiration from to improve their healthcare system.
The Janus Heroin Treatment Center in Basel is a clinic where medical-grade heroin is administered to those with heroin dependencies. This allows these individuals to resume their normal lives, maintain jobs, and avoid the debilitating effects of withdrawal while deterring them from using street drugs. With this treatment, Switzerland saw a dramatic decrease in the number of heroin overdoses and the severity of the heroin crisis in the 1990s. This unique form of harm reduction treatment is something I believe America could utilize to help with their fight against the drug epidemic. In America, drug addiction is viewed through a very black-and-white lens, where those with dependencies are pushed into sobriety and given little to no support. However, in Switzerland, a humanistic approach is utilized, focusing on the personal lives of these individuals and giving them a choice to receive this treatment.
In Switzerland’s nursing education system, high school graduates are given the choice to gain their nursing license through a three-year vocational training program. In these three years, they follow a preceptor in a hospital and are taught to perform nursing tasks while they are paid for their work. After receiving their license, many students choose to stay with the company they completed their apprenticeship with. With this route implemented in America, many nursing students would not have to struggle with paying off their tuition and student loans. Furthermore, in-person training is valuable in a profession such as nursing.
During my two weeks abroad, I visited the University Psychiatric Hospital in Basel, where an open-door policy is in place for patients. To eliminate the “threatening” atmosphere of locked doors and security in psychiatric hospitals, patients were given a space where they were free to roam around the hospital and go outside to play basketball, interact with therapy animals, and socialize. When the nurses in this hospital took a survey about whether they would prefer to get rid of the open-door policy or not, the majority of nurses voted that they loved the open-door policy. This is because the patients spent most of their time outside and were able to take care of their own needs. This keeps the patient’s independence intact and promotes the safe atmosphere that psychiatric patients especially need. The hospital was also very clean and comfortable, which is something I did not see in many hospitals in America.
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