In recent years, Tajik doctors have been increasingly leaving their homeland, complaining about low wages and difficult working conditions. Experts say that the healthcare sector needs large-scale reforms.
Abdullo Khodjaev, a Tajik doctor, has been working in Russia for seven years. Previously he was an otorhinolaryngologist (ENT) at a hospital in Khujand.
“I came to Russia to cure a loved one. The treatment took a long time, prescribed medications were harder to find in Tajikistan. I took a lot of loans from the bank, and it would have been impossible to pay them off with my Tajik salary”, says Abdullo Khodzhayev.
According to him, the main reason Tajik doctors quit their jobs is low wages. “I am already used to working in Russia, so I will continue to work here, the salary I get is enough to live on,” Khodzhayev said.
A Tajik doctor who has worked in various hospitals in Africa for 17 years said on condition of anonymity that there are many reasons why Tajik doctors are leaving the country. “Of course, the main reason is low wages, but another problem is the rude attitude of the heads of medical institutions toward employees,” the interlocutor told CABAR.asia.
He emigrated back in 2004, initially started working in Yemen, and since 2012 in various African countries. Around this time he returned to Tajikistan for a year and a half but then decided to leave the country again.
“It is very difficult to live on such a small salary. Because of this, most doctors are forced to extort money from patients. A person aware of his own worth cannot live as a ‘beggar’ for long,” the interlocutor told CABAR.asia.
Minister of Health and Social Protection Jamoliddin Abdullozoda told at a July 27th press conference that in the first six months of this year alone, 674 doctors and 1,350 nurses left Tajikistan for labor migration.
Abdullozoda explained that other countries, especially neighboring countries, provide benefits for medical workers and this, in his opinion, becomes the main reason for leaving. According to the minister, Tajikistan still lacks 3,024 doctors and 1,701 nurses, mainly family doctors, intensive care anesthesiologists, and pediatricians.
Emomali Mirzoev, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, told CABAR.asia that in order to solve this problem, medical workers are provided with a number of benefits, including "allocation of additional plots of land and land near houses, as well as benefits for payment of utilities.
However, experts believe that these benefits are clearly insufficient to keep doctors in Tajikistan. According to them, the industry is outdated and is not being modernized.
Abdullo Davlatov, a Tajik physician living in Moscow, told CABAR.asia that in recent years he has never seen comprehensive innovations in Tajikistan's health care system. Davlatov admits that private and foreign hospitals have appeared in the country. But no fundamental changes in the industry - from training specialists to hiring them, from new salary standards to new ways of attracting capital to the industry - are in sight.
"Of course, the reconstruction of the industry is a very difficult task, and whoever undertakes this task will definitely find himself under the criticism of the public, the government, and the media, but in 4-5 years they will gain results. For this reason, no responsible person wants to go down this path," Davlatov said.
According to him, it will require medical workers with modern knowledge and IT specialists."And, of course, a willful decision of the country's authorities is needed. The question arises: will Tajikistan be able to complete the reform of the industry without outside help? The answer is, of course, it can," Davlatov added.