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Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Health, Khalid Ait Taleb announced that Morocco is in dire need of 32,000 doctors and 65,000 nurses to strengthen the health sector, on May 5.
Ait Taleb made the announcement during the oral questions in the parliament session on Tuesday evening.
The minister has identified a set of challenges that the ministry strived to address. Among the challenges, is the need to tackle the lack of human resources, the regional supply of healthcare facilities and personnel, governance deficit, and the lack of fundings.
To address the impediments of advancing the health sector, the ministry plans as part of its reform for the sector, to improve the health supply by creating a regional health map, implementing the regional medical program, rehabilitating the health infrastructure, and adopting a new approach for the maintenance of structures and equipment.
To effectively implement the reform, the minister insisted on opening to foreign investment, attracting foreign doctors to practice in Morocco, and fighting against the brain drain of Moroccan physicians.
Constant lack of personnel
The prevalent issues Ait Taleb outlined are the same as those he unveiled in a report in November 2019, as part of his department’s plans for the 2020 fiscal year.
The health minister spoke of a worrying shortage in personnel and equipment. He said Morocco’s deficit in personnel stands at 97,161, spread over 32,387 medical doctors and 64,774 nurses as well as other medical practitioners.
To solve the problem, the ministry’s report suggested recruiting 62,000 medical personnel. But, due to the insufficient budget of MAD 18.68 billion ($2.1 billion) in the 2020 fiscal year, the ministry limited the recruitment to only 4,000 new medical personnel.
Yet, in 2021 the minister has once again spoken of the unchanged deficit of personnel showing that the ministry struggles to upgrade the health infrastructure.
This questions the minister and his department’s ability to meet the demands of citizens who have long suffered inadequate health services.
Issues with the health sector
Persisting problems facing the health sector in Morocco include the brain drain and unfavorable working conditions such as a lack of medical equipment and assigning newly-graduated doctors to remote areas.
Many doctors have condemned the decaying conditions, mainly the large workload and long working hours in public hospitals.
Another problem is the brain drain of doctors. It estimated that around 8,000 doctors who graduated from Moroccan universities left the country to practice in France.
As morocco has only 27,266 doctors, a ratio of 7.1 per 10,000 people, it is far below the standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO) of 15.3.
