Doctors of Arabia, here’s what the petromonarchies offer to healthcare personnel
Not just Roberto Mancini. Doctors and nurses are also fleeing to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. What attracts them are decidedly more advantageous economic conditions, but also better working conditions. Facts, numbers and comments
The health systems of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates call and Italian doctors and nurses respond. For Antonio De Palma, national president of the Nursing Up union, they are the new "happy islands" of healthcare personnel.
And how can you blame him? From the union's initial checks, it appears that the basic monthly salary – tax-free – of a nurse in the United Arab Emirates is 3,400 euros net and can reach up to 6,000 euros, to which must be added accommodation, extra benefits, two paid trips to Italy and support if spouse and children are also moving.
Italy, on the other hand, offers around 1,400/1,500 euros per month, exhausting shifts, staff shortages and often daily violence to deal with. Conditions that had been patched up worse than the hole with the ploy of coin-operated doctors procured by cooperatives attempting to replace the National Health Service (SSN).
DOCTORS AND NURSES READY TO LEAVE FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
The data to worry about reported by De Palma do not concern actual departures of doctors and nurses towards Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (Qatar and Bahrain follow among the preferences) but rather the provision given by the healthcare personnel who, if called, are said to ready to pack your bags.
“The news of the last few hours, which comes to us from our direct contact with international agencies specialized in the recruitment of healthcare personnel, and also confirmed by the zealous work of Professor Foad Aodi, president of Amsi (Association of doctors of foreign origin in Italy), openly highlights how the maximum availability starting from now in the next few weeks has now risen to 550 by professionals, in particular from Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna", explained the president of Nursing Up.
For Aodi, however, it is not just the salary that is tempting, but "you are looking for quality of life and better working conditions".
THE BOOM IN REQUESTS AND THE RISK OF EXODUS
The desire to move towards more attractive working conditions is certainly not new but in the last three months there has been a boom which has caused requests to soar by 40%, perhaps also thanks to the recent example of the transfer of famous people such as the former coach of the national team Roberto Mancini.
But as the number of professionals willing to change their lives increases hour by hour, for De Palma the risk of "a real exodus of healthcare workers towards the Middle East" is very real. And the question arises spontaneously: who will take care of our increasingly aging country?
THERE IS NO COMPETITION WITH PETROMONARCHIES
“It is sad and definitely leaves a bad taste in the mouth to have to note that Italy continues to train the best excellence in the healthcare world, only to then let them slip away and decide, incredibly, to replace them, as the Ministry of Health intends to do, with professionals from from abroad, who do not have the same training as us,” says De Palma.
Italy has always had a problem with the financing of public health spending while the petromonarchies, recalls the president of Nursing Up, invest around 10% of their GDP in it "and the gap with nations like ours, organizationally speaking, risks become unbridgeable."
Regarding healthcare spending, as recently reported by the Gimbe Foundation , 13 countries in Europe surpass us, we are at the bottom of the list among the G7 nations and we are 0.3 points below the OECD area average.
WHAT IS THE MIDDLE EAST LOOKING FOR
The profiles most requested by cutting-edge private facilities such as the Cleveland Hospital and the NMC in Abu Dhabi, according to De Palma, are "specialized doctors and nurses, in particular with previous experience in emergency room, general surgery, pediatrics and operating theatre, as well as with years of experience in the cosmetic surgery sector, an increasingly cutting-edge micro-world in the Middle East, where the salaries of professionals are rising further".
Furthermore, for De Palma, Italians would have an edge over other Europeans: "With certainty, among European professionals, it is confirmed to me that Italians are the most sought after, and not only for their brilliant basic training and their skills, but above all for those human qualities, for that charisma which, they tell me, even makes them preferable to their German and French colleagues".
According to data from the Association of Doctors of Foreign Origin in Italy (Amsi) and the Euro-Mediterranean Medical Union (Umem), of the 500 professionals who are ready to leave from Italy, 250 are medical specialists, 150 are nurses and 100 are general practitioners, physiotherapists, pharmacists, podiatrists and dieticians.
THE REQUIREMENTS
To access a super structure in the Middle East, Aodi reminds us that "the minimum curriculum varies based on the profession: nurses must have been in practice for at least 2 years, specialist doctors for 3 years and general practitioners for 5 years". However, you need a training diploma, specialization, a certificate of good conduct from the ministry and the professional association in hand and obviously excellent English.
But with these requirements, starting to work is easier than in a private Italian facility, where instead of three months you wait a year and a half to be admitted after submitting the application.
WHY THE MIDDLE EAST IS HUNTING FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
As Amsi and Umem explain, in the Gulf countries the need for healthcare personnel is growing both due to the large investments that have been made in hospitals and highly specialized centers and because the population is also increasing and aging. In this regard, it is estimated that by 2030 Saudi Arabia will need 44,000 doctors and 88,000 nurses.
Furthermore, adds Aodi, the Gulf countries "have few medical graduates because young people prefer to opt for economic or technological faculties" and already 90% of the health graduates who work there come from "Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Morocco, but they are not enough."
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/medici-arabia-ecco-cosa-offrono-le-petromonarchie-al-personale-sanitario/ on Thu, 14 Sep 2023 10:50:03 +0000.