Medical Brain Drain

December 24th
Spain’s health care sector suffers from a shortage of skilled employees, prompted in part by a brain drain abroad. Antoni Gallego of Catalonia’s medical trades union says the problem is simple: “Low wages, overwork, and poor social status. We see this in the insulting way that more and more people treat medical staff,” he says, pointing out that health care has become a consumer item in the eyes of the general public. His organization says that a doctor in Spain earns between €33,000 and €41,000 a year in Spain, compared to between €73,000 and €140,000 in the United Kingdom, or€45,000 to€89,000 in France or Italy. At the same time, growing numbers of nurses are leaving Spain to work abroad, particularly in Britain. The appeal of the National Health Service lies not so much with its pay-scale, as with the possibilities for on-the-job training, says Esther Vilarasau, of the trade union SATSE. Natalia Varela left A Coruña to work in Cambridge, and says that while she doesn’t consider herself well-paid, she is able to complete a post-graduate course in dramatherapy. She found work through a Vallencia-based agency called Baker Street, which sends around 200 doctors, nurses and pharmacists a year to the United Kingdom from Spain.
El Pais, English Edition