Foreign doctors boost public health

PALMA
THE Balearic public health service, Ib-Salut reported yesterday that 6.8 percent of its 3'325 fully qualified doctors are foreign, with the primary care centres incorporating emergency medical staff being the sector which employ the largest number of qualified medics from overseas, a total of 48.

In conjunction with the Can Misses hospital on Ibiza, the Mateu Orfila hospital on Minorca is the centre which has the second highest number of foreign doctors on its staff (22). Whilst Son Dureta hospital in Palma only has seven foreign doctors amongst its full-time employee numbers, there are 37 medics of differing nationalities on a standby, or locum list as it is known in the medical world.

At the other end of the scale, those reporting the least number of foreign doctors in their midst yesterday were primary care centres on Minorca (5) and Majorca's public health management service, Gesma (2).

According to the latest information made available in March 2007 by the official Balearic College of Doctors (COMIB), a total of 4'374 medical professionals are registered as operating in the Islands, of which 576 (13.17 percent) are foreign, compared to the vast 86.83 percent majority who are Spanish. Around the Balearic Islands, some 41 different nationalities are practicing medicine with the trend for foreign doctors increasing due to shortages of such professionals amongst the native population and the ever-increasing demand for doctors. Of all the foreign doctors registered in the Balearics, 3.09 percent are German, 2.74 percent are Argentinian, 2.40 percent Cuban and 1.07 percent Italian. The data shows clearly that 227 of the 567 foreign doctors practicing in the Islands (40 percent) are working in public health whist the remainder are employed privately.