Nurse Exodus in Lleida Takes Shape: 15 Requests for Certificate of Good Conduct Filed in 2025 to Practice Abroad. The figure, modest in absolute terms, represents the tip of the iceberg of a problem that places Catalonia as the autonomous community losing the most healthcare professionals in all of Spain: 19.98% of all statewide requests. While the Catalan government boasts about its healthcare model, data from the General Council of Nursing and the Official College of Nurses of Lleida (COILL) reveals a stubborn reality: Catalonia is short at least 12,622 professionals to reach the European nurse-to-population ratio, and the exodus shows no signs of stopping.
Catalonia Leads the Nurse Exodus in Spain
The data, published by the newspaper La Mañana on July 9, 2026, is stark. Catalonia processes 5.5% of all statewide requests for certificates of good conduct but accounts for 19.98% of all applications in Spain to work abroad. In other words, one out of every five nurses leaving the country is Catalan. It is followed by Madrid, with 225 requests, and the Valencian Community, with 217. Andalusia records 149, the Canary Islands 108, the Basque Country 73, the Balearic Islands 48, Galicia 45, Castilla-La Mancha 36, Aragon 31, Murcia 29, Castile and León 27, Navarre 22, Asturias 16, La Rioja 7, Cantabria 6, Extremadura 5, Ceuta 3, and Melilla 2.
The gap between Catalonia and the rest of the communities is no coincidence. It stems from a structural problem that the regional health authorities have failed to tackle with the urgency the situation demands for years. While the Department of Health gets bogged down in identity debates and administrative reshuffles, nurses are packing their bags.
Lleida: The Microcosm of a Foretold Crisis
In the province of Lleida, 15 nurses have requested the certificate of good conduct to work outside Spain. This may seem like a modest number, but in a territory with a small population and a healthcare system already suffering from chronic waiting lists, every professional who leaves exacerbates the pressure on those who stay. COILL President Mercè Porté put it plainly: “We need to work on policies and organizational systems that value the profession and make the healthcare system attractive enough for nurses to find opportunities and decide to stay.”
The translation is straightforward: nurses in Lleida are not leaving because they want to, but because the system drives them out. Job insecurity, lack of professional recognition, workload pressure, and overwork are the reasons cited by both COILL and the Council of Nursing Colleges of Catalonia. Their dean, Lluïsa Garcia, calls for “serious and coherent measures” to curb the exodus. Measures that, to this day, are not forthcoming.
The Structural Deficit: 12,622 Professionals Missing
The most alarming figure is not the exodus itself, but what it reveals about the state of Catalonia’s healthcare. To reach the European nurse-to-population ratio, Catalonia needs to incorporate at least 12,622 professionals. This is not an optimistic estimate or a partisan calculation: it is the figure handled by the professional colleges themselves and repeatedly denounced by the General Council of Nursing (CGE).
Meanwhile, the population is aging and healthcare needs are growing. Pressure on staff intensifies, and working conditions deteriorate. The nurses who stay take on unsustainable workloads, which in turn fuels the desire to leave among those still holding on. It is a vicious cycle that the Catalan government has failed to break.
The CGE has denounced that the nurse exodus continues to increase year after year. It is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one. And while other autonomous communities implement measures to retain talent, financial incentives, reduced working hours, career development plans, Catalonia continues to lead the statistics in the wrong direction.
The Real Impact on the Citizen of Lleida
Behind these figures lie tangible consequences for patients. Waiting lists for outpatient consultations, diagnostic tests, and surgical procedures are growing longer. Primary care, the gateway to the system, suffers from chronic saturation. Residents of Lleida who need a visit with their reference nurse wait days, sometimes weeks. And when they are finally seen, the professional attending to them does so under a workload that compromises the quality of care.
The problem is not just about resources, but about management. The Catalan government has had years to plan, to make the profession attractive, to dignify working conditions that push nurses to seek opportunities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, or the Nordic countries. It has not done so. And while political debate focuses on other priorities, Lleida’s public healthcare system is bleeding dry.
A Look Ahead: Retain Talent or Face the Consequences
The exodus of 15 nurses from Lleida is not a statistical footnote. It is evidence that the Catalan healthcare system has lost touch with reality. While the independence movement fills the political agenda with its identity-driven daydreams, healthcare professionals are leaving and patients are paying the price.
The solution is not simple, but the diagnosis is. Serious and coherent measures are needed, as Lluïsa Garcia demands. Decent salaries, adequate staffing levels, professional recognition, working conditions that do not burn out workers. All of this requires political will and, above all, investment. But it also requires clear priorities. And in Catalonia, public healthcare has been on the back burner for far too long.
The next government of the Catalan government, regardless of its political stripe, will have to decide whether to continue allowing nurses to pack their bags or, once and for all, provide the means to retain them. The residents of Lleida, who suffer the consequences of this silent exodus, deserve an answer. And no more empty promises.