Campaign highlights realities of migration for Moldovan health professionals
WHO
Doctors and nurses who leave the Republic of Moldova to work abroad often miss their professions – this is the subject of a year-long awareness raising campaign launched in the Republic of Moldova at the end of September. The campaign is being organized by the Ministry of Health with support from WHO and the European Union (EU).
The campaign consists of video and audio clips, outdoor advertisements and the launch of a webpage (www.medici-in.md). The video clips are based on the idea that health professionals can take their memories with them when they go to work abroad, but not always their professions. One clip shows scenes from the past and the present of a doctor and a nurse who left their professions to become a housekeeper and a waiter somewhere in Europe.
The website aims to provide Moldovan health professionals working at home and abroad with more information on national health system reforms and changes, job opportunities, recognition of qualifications, legal and circular migration and possibilities of reintegration back home.
Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Mihai Ciocanu, said during a press conference: “Human resources represent one of the key elements of the health system and our mission is to keep health workers at home, to improve their working conditions and to provide proper motivational policies. With WHO and other international partners’ support, the Ministry of Health has improved the database on human resources at country and facility level, revised training curricula for medical colleges and debated on the incentive systems for professionals. All these activities will reduce the negative effects of brain drain and brain waste.”
The sad fact of health care worker migration
WHO Representative to the Republic of Moldova, Dr Jarno Habicht, said: “The campaign aims to raise awareness of the mobility of health care professionals and the sad fact that many of them not only step out of their profession and health care sector at home but also in the countries they settle in. The video spot, emotional as it is, is the reality of the current trends. One can take memories but not the profession that one studied and worked so hard to achieve. The overall project encourages temporary or circular migration; the series of bilateral agreements are planned to be negotiated at the state level, as well as between universities and colleges.”
The Republic of Moldova is facing a severe shortage of health professionals. The Ministry of Health reports that more than 40% of Moldovan health professionals have left the national health system in the past 20 years, a great number of them migrating abroad. However, most migrant health professionals face tremendous difficulties entering the labour markets in the receiving countries as they cannot work as doctors or nurses.
The campaign and ongoing process of strengthening the capacity of the Republic of Moldova to manage the migration of Moldovan health professionals are part of the EU-funded project “Better managing the mobility of health professionals in the Republic of Moldova” and encompassed in the biennial collaborative agreement (BCA) 2012–2013 between the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova and WHO/Europe.
