From the 2024 fall semester, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) will for the first time offer the opportunity to study nursing at degree level. As it explains in a press release, it hopes that this new course will help address the skills shortage facing central Switzerland, which is currently the only Swiss region that does not have its own degree-level nursing training program.
HSLU is reacting to forecasts that central Switzerland will need 3,585 additional tertiary-level nurses by 2029: 3,150 with a vocational qualification and 400 to 450 with a university degree. To counter this staffing shortage, the HSLU Intercantonal Council (which represents the governments of the six central Swiss cantons), at its meeting on December 18, approved proposals to establish bachelor’s and master’s degree-level nursing courses. It also agreed to expand the existing bachelor’s course in medical technology, which will now include three fields of study: medical IT and data science, life sciences and medical product development.
“We want to support local healthcare organizations – hospitals and institutions providing home care and long-term care – and the booming medical technology and life sciences industries to find skilled workers,” says Barbara Bader, rector of HSLU, in the press release. “We can help by providing the required healthcare education and training programs.”
Dr Armin Hartmann, President of the Intercantonal Council, adds that the new courses are “important for central Switzerland. They will enable us to strengthen the healthcare professions by providing attractive education and training programs, so that we can retain urgently needed skilled workers in the region.”
