Immigration of physicians to Slovakia – case study

Abstract

The lack of physicians is a serious problem in the Slovak Republic (SR More than 5,000 physicians will be missing in the health care system in the next two years. From the report on health care status in Slovakia, according to OECD (2017), the state of health care in the country achieves very negative results in the indicators related to the human and financial resources of the monitored sector (mortality of newborns, preventable and avoidable mortality, urgent traffic, and others). The study was based on the analysis of the labor market situation in the health care sector for the profession of physician in the SR to identify the state and future need of physicians working in Slovakia, find possible solutions to the identified situation and determine which pull and push factors are the most important. The contribution of the study will be based on the analysis to suggest the ways to facilitate the employment of foreign doctors in Slovakia. The problem of the lack of specialists was considered in two directions of solving it on account of the flow of specialists from other countries: stimulation in order for the foreign medical students to stay in the country after their studies; engagement of foreign qualified doctors. Real situation with doctor stuffing in the Slovak Republic was evaluated, the forecasts until 2022 were made, the proposals on improving the management in solving this problem at the state level were made.