Not even a salary of 2,000 euros stopped them, 155 doctors fled from Kosovo this year

2023-12-20 14:19:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Not even a salary of 2,000 euros stopped them, 155 doctors fled from Kosovo this

Illustrative photo

The salary increase has not convinced the doctors to stay in Kosovo. Only this year, 155 of them have emigrated. The situation is expected to worsen in 2024, when visas are also liberalized. Salaries for specialist doctors have gone up to 2 thousand euros.

Despite promises to stop the "brain drain", this year 155 doctors have left Kosovo.

In the Chamber of Doctors, they have shown that the flow of emigrants is smaller than last year, but expressed their fear that the situation will worsen in 2024, when visas are also liberalized.

"Now we are somewhere around 155, which is a smaller number than last year. Last year there were, it seems to me, over 200, so this year we have a decrease in the number of requests for the necessary documentation for departure, and this figure is smaller than last year, I can say that it can be also related to the liberalization of visas. And we can see that an increase can happen in the next year, but these are all presumptions that we have to wait for."

The Chamber of Doctors has investigated the reasons for the departure of health professionals. Until this year, the exodus was mainly explained by low wages, but when they increased, the reason changed.

"Until now, salary has been, if not the first reason, the second. Now, salaries are in third place, but the main reason is still unemployment, because most of them are young and unemployed doctors. We have over 550 doctors - I don't have the exact number right now - who are unemployed and these are the ones who are looking for work and most of them are leaving. This is. And the second reason, the working conditions and the qualitative conditions of the specializations because they are all the ones waiting, and then comes the salary".

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Arben Vitia, has spoken about the many challenges that health is facing.

Vitia further stated that throughout the past years, partial interventions have not been productive, have not given the right effect.

"Therefore, we are determined for an irreversible reform to establish standards of an irreversible reform based on analysis, on evidence, so that this process is irreversible."

He further spoke about the emigration of doctors, which according to him, is a trend in other countries, not only in the region, but also in Europe, until he added that until the adoption of the Salary Law, the flight of doctors was understandable.

"With the Salary Law, health professionals are the ones who benefited the most, a specialist doctor, based not only on the basic salary, but with allowances and guardianship, rarely any specialist doctor, especially in secondary and tertiary institutions, has a salary below 2000 euros" .

In just three years, about 400 doctors have fled from Kosovo.

But, according to official data, the gross salary (untaxed) of doctors in Kosovo is 610 euros, while for example in Germany, they are paid up to 4000 euros.

Otherwise, according to the chambers of health professionals, there are 24 thousand 92 licensed health workers in Kosovo, of which 14 thousand 966 are women and 9 thousand 126 are men./ Monitor