COVID-19 pandemic: a European perspective on health economic policies

Abstract

In this contribution, delivered after more than one month of nationwide lockdowns of European countries, we discuss side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens’ access to medical care and the efficiency of national health systems in care provision. In the first section, we stress the importance of indirect mortality, i.e. non-diagnosis of non-COVID diseases whose standard-of-care management could have avoided death during the pandemic. We highlight how indirect mortality is linked to patients’ psychological attitudes and behavioral responses to the unforeseen contingencies that the spread of COVID-19 has brought with it. The second section complements the first one by delving into the issue of the sustainability of financing and organization of national hospital systems, framing the discussion within the financial problems that the European Community is facing, which have been exacerbated by the current COVID-19 infection spread. Our interdisciplinary approach combines insights from academic surgery and psychiatry on the one side and behavioral and political economy on the other side.