Are these really the people that should be required to work so much? Isn’t their job about handling life and death daily? Wouldn’t we want exactly these people to come fully rested to work every single day and be fully staffed?
I don’t know if there are jobs with similar stakes that are so carelessly staffed and disgustingly paid.
It is simply the law.
For example, in Switzerland, no employee may work more than 45 hours per week in the normal case (there are exceptions). Even if the employee and employer agree to ignore this, the employer will get absolutely rekt by the (mandatory) insurance if anything happens to the employee - even an accident in the employee’s free time.
It’s not the same, but similar, in other European countries.