Exodus of doctors: 3,657 went abroad from ’96 to ’02

The continued migration of Filipino doctors for better-paying jobs as nurses abroad can cause the country’s health care system to collapse, an expert said yesterday.

Dr. Marilyn Lorenzo, who heads the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Health Policy and Development Studies (UP-IHPDS), said 3,657 doctors left the country from 1996 to 2002.

"Something must really be done on this because the quality of our own health care system will deteriorate" if patients are left in the care of inexperienced doctors, she said.

Records of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed 2,956 physicians went to the United States, 393 to Canada, 197 to Australia, 83 to New Zealand, seven to Japan, six to the United Kingdom, three to Germany and 13 to other countries from 1996 to 2002.

Over the years, it has become a trend for practicing doctors to take up nursing because nurses are more in demand in developed nations.

"Actually, it’s not only doctors. We are getting information that even dentists are taking up nursing so that they could go abroad. It’s becoming their ticket for migration," Lorenzo said.

In the past three board examinations for nursing, around 500 of the examinees were doctors.

POEA records also showed that from 1996 to 2002, a total of 16,124 nurses left the country. The US accounts for 13,567 nurses; Canada, 1,566; Australia, 612; Germany, 73; New Zealand, 56; Japan, 46; and the United Kingdom and other countries, 175.

The records do not include those who went abroad as tourists but actually sought employment there. At present, UP is in the process of tracking them down to get a clear picture of the migration of doctors and to ensure their protection from abuse.

Lorenzo said "push factors" that influenced doctors to leave the Philippines are the unstable socio-political condition of the country and low wages and poor working conditions in most local hospitals.

"They said that the working condition here is not good. They said the socio-political climate in our country is getting worse and that they are leaving for the future of their children," she said.

Lorenzo added that the starting salary of doctors, especially those in small hospitals and in the provinces, is low considering what they spent when they studied medicine. Doctors in small hospitals and in the provinces earn slightly above minimum wage and receive heavy workloads.

"If they became doctors for money, you can’t blame them. But in the first place, they should have not become doctors if they are after the money," she said.