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Slovaks fill a medical staff vacuum

Foreign doctors are standing in at Czech hospitals, but facilities are still understaffed

By Lisa Nuch Venbrux
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 28th, 2007 issue

KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Dr. Ivo Vočka, 27, estimates that he earns up to 30 percent more in the Czech Republic than he would have in his native Slovakia.
Like most hospitals in Prague, Královské Vinohrady Faculty Hospital bustles with activity. Doctors crisscross white corridors, nurses examine charts, patients stroll along narrow sidewalks.
The hospital typifies Czech health care in another way — in addition to the native doctors drawn to this teaching hospital, many come from further afield, mainly Slovakia. As Czech doctors seek work abroad, Slovaks are filling the gaps they leave and may be keeping the hospitals afloat. A shortage of doctors, however, could still sink what some say is an ailing health system.
Though just 27, Dr. Ivo Vočka, a neurosurgeon from Humenné, Slovakia, speaks matter-of-factly about his choice to come to the Czech Republic over two years ago. “I always wanted to go somewhere else from Slovakia,” he says, “There were more possibilities to get more money here.”
Vočka estimates that he makes 20 percent to 30 percent more than he would have in his native country. That may explain why, according to the Czech Medical Chamber, 12 percent of doctors working in Czech hospitals are foreigners, mostly from Slovakia.
Better facilities and teachers add to the attraction of the Czech Republic, where he says half of his fellow medical school graduates moved after completing their studies at home.
“Prague will always be the bigger and best place for education,” Vočka insists. Similarities in language also make the Czech Republic a natural choice for him. “[The patients] accept us as doctors. When they have the care they need, they don’t have problems with anybody.”
Medical exodus
Making sure that patients get the care they need can be a challenge in the Czech Republic. A medical exodus that accelerated after the country joined the European Union in 2004 is leaving the country short of doctors.
“At present we are missing 2,000 doctors,” Tomáš Cikrt of the Health Ministry told The Prague Post. According to him, “difficult salary conditions,” restrictive labor laws and inflexible pay rates help to explain why about 1 percent of Czech doctors leave the country each year.
Milan Kubek, president of the Czech Medical Chamber, cites money and working conditions as the two primary reasons doctors leave. In the United Kingdom and Germany, doctors can make up to five times as much as they would in the Czech Republic, he says.
New graduates from medical colleges may also have to do work, such as transcribing reports, that is “really unpopular,” he says. “In Germany, the doctors have voice recorders and a secretary to deal with the transcribing.”
Critical conditions
Czech doctors are not the only ones with aspirations to move abroad. Despite the influx of Slovak doctors, Kubek says many see the Czech Republic as simply a “transit country.”
Vočka, for instance, thinks the United Kingdom and Ireland are better, more lucrative places to work. The expenses of buying a flat here, for example, will be a challenge. “I need to earn for 30 more years, and that’s just a flat.” A dozen of his Czech and Slovak friends have already left for the United Kingdom.
If the trend continues, the health system could have difficulty replacing doctors. Health Minister Tomáš Julínek anticipates this need. Last December he announced plans to attract doctors from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU in January.
But Kubek is skeptical. “Romanian doctors want to go to France; they don’t want to work in the Czech Republic. And the Bulgarians prefer to work in Great Britain.”
That could leave the Czech Republic struggling to staff hospitals, a fate the Health Ministry wants to avoid. “Movement of medical staff is common in Europe, and we should be against it,” Cikrt says.
Naďa Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Lisa Nuch Venbrux can be reached at lvenbrux@praguepost.com


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