“Escalating Wave of Doctor Emigration Threatens Tunisia’s Health Sector”

According to the statistics of the Deanship of Physicians, 80 percent of newly graduated young doctors leave Tunisia annually, amid urgent calls from professional organizations working in the health sector to find radical solutions to end the bleeding of doctors’ emigration and its effects on the quality of public health, medical investments, and the future of the health sector.

It is noteworthy that young doctors are mainly heading towards the European market, where Germany and France are their first destination, followed by the Gulf countries and Canada, according to the latest figures published by the Technical Cooperation Agency in Tunisia.

The official spokesman for the Association of Tunisian Doctors around the world, Caesar Sassi, a doctor specializing in resuscitation and anesthesia, told Sky News Arabia:

We called on the Deanship of Physicians to establish a national dialogue on the health sector in Tunisia in order to set incentives to prevent the emigration of doctors from the country and encourage those who left to return to work in Tunisian hospitals.

The exacerbation of the phenomenon of violence inside hospitals against medical staff, as 200 doctors were subjected to physical violence at least once in Tunisian hospitals, in addition to the deterioration of working conditions, lack of equipment, especially in public hospitals, and poor hiring of doctors, which are among the most important factors driving young doctors to emigrate.

The young doctor called on the authorities to review the legislation regulating the work of Tunisian doctors residing abroad, who are prohibited by law from combining the practice of medicine between Tunisia and their countries of residence abroad, stressing that they have acquired important technical skills in the use of modern equipment and equipment that allow benefit from their services, especially in the interior regions that suffer from Lack of medical expertise.

And the official spokesman for the Association of Tunisian Doctors around the world confirmed that they had initiated an official correspondence with the authorities to draw attention to the bleeding of doctors’ emigration abroad, and to warn of the repercussions of the phenomenon on the future of health in Tunisia, as a study conducted by the Association, which included a sample of 393 doctors, showed that 70 percent of doctors emigrated As a result of the poor working conditions and that 50 percent of them are ready to return to Tunisia in the event that the rental conditions and the laws regulating the practice of the profession improve.

Caesar Sassi, a resuscitation physician who has been working in France for years, told us that he and his colleagues in Europe are keen to support the health sector in Tunisia by providing equipment through organizations or by sharing scientific expertise available in Europe with young doctors in Tunisia, and that they are all concerned about the future of the health sector in Tunisia. .

The doctor explained: “All countries of the world are witnessing a shortage of medical personnel, and here in Europe, countries are accelerating in attracting doctors from the Maghreb and African countries and raising the number of doctors assigned from abroad, including Tunisians. Germany even opened its doors since 2014 to recent graduates from medical faculties in Tunisia.” directly, and some of them program immigration even before graduation.”

For his part, dentist Youssef Bleish said that the emigration of doctors is not an isolated case, but rather comes within a complete phenomenon, which is the emigration of young people from Tunisia, commenting that the unemployment rate is high in his specialty in dentistry, especially since the costs of opening an equipped and modern dental clinic are very high.

In turn, Dr. Amin Belhaj considered that the doctor’s thinking of emigrating is expected because of the long working hours that are not compatible with the doctors’ wages in public hospitals.

Belhaj continued: “The medical decision is directly affected by the patient’s poor access to x-rays and advanced analyses, which psychologically affects the doctor, making him feel helpless towards the profession, its ethics, and his commitment to aiding patients in a timely manner, which prompts him to think about emigration.”

The latest official statistics in Tunisia indicate the emigration of 3,300 doctors during the last five years, at a rate of more than 400 doctors annually, while the number of active doctors in Tunisia is about 8,500, and about 500 doctors graduate annually from medical schools in Tunisia, most of whom leave to practice abroad.

Experts have been calling for years for the need for Tunisia to protect its health sector for the coming years, amid expectations of more young immigrant doctors in return for the retirement of a significant number of doctors working in the public sector.