Doctors are leaving Kosovo, Sejdiu: Reasons, Low Pays, and Bad Work Conditions

The phenomenon of leaving doctors abroad is turning into disturbing in Kosovo. Low wages and poor working conditions continue to be the main cause of this phenomenon that is jeopardising Kosovo public health.

In 2022 alone, 205 young doctors chose to leave the country to practice their profession, outside the borders of Kosovo. The chairman of the Kosovo Medical Oda, Plerat Sejdiu, says it has also brought reductions in interventions in many hospitals in the country.

Sejdiu: “This year has been the largest number in young doctors who have left Kosovo is 205, last year it was 159, which means 30-35% has increased that number. And with doctors who have left the public sector according to official information it's 59, we think it's over 59 about 60, and last year we have information is about 1012 that's released. Anesthesiology is the one with the largest number left, it's surgicals, beginning with gynaecology and other subjects, and the amount of information we have in the pediatrics is 3-4 that are gone and the most complicated is anesthesiology because all surgical fluids are related to the function of that clinic, in fact, to the number of anesthesiologists, so it has reflected in reducing work in these clinics, the increase in the waiting list.

The head of the OPC in Kosovo considers that with this trend of leaving doctors, the public health system is risking that in the next five years, there will be no doctors left. Plerata Sejdiu considers the departure of specialists towards the country's private sector even more disturbing. Sejdiu points out that if the escape trend continues after five years we will have a major medical crisis.

This year, except for the number that has increased, the order of reasons has changed. So far it has been the working conditions, I talk to those who have fled outside Kosovo in the first place, then quality of specialisations and finally salaries. This year, however, we have a change in unemployment because there are many unemployed young doctors about 350, and then wages come and finally work conditions come. As for experts who flee to the public sector, however, there are working conditions, work pressure, and wages. If so, we've seen that within five years we're going to have a major medical crisis, if they leave for the next five thousand years, and over these five years there are 700 who will retire and we have no idea how far out of the private sector, because it depends on how much it will be invested in public then I think 2028 will be a year of crisis”, the chairman of the OMK points out.

The white shirt removal trend has even touched the nursing staff. Kosovo Nurses' Oda Chairman Naser Rrustemi says the number of those leaving has increased by 80%.

This year I believe in, it's 80% bigger, the reasons are different and we have nurses who, even though the competition is open, he's not going to continue his job, because of a dignified salary, whether working conditions or even night shifts. He doesn't even run from now on to pay another thousand euros, but I'm going outside. Until this moment we're talking is about 633, only this year that we've calculated that this amount is accurate. We run out of nurses who probably work for 20 years, 15 and here is the biggest problem because we have certain profiles, whether nurses working in emergency, then in Intensive Care, and they don't get ready in two years, it takes at least 5 years of work experience and have a case of” training, he stressed.

The Association for Patients' Rights, which estimates that with the departure of professionals, the health of Kosovo residents is also being threatened.