Production of Social Critique
As the coronavirus epidemic once again accelerates in Serbia a number of questions emerge, and the media and public focus once again on healthcare workers. What conditions are their working under in these (new) circumstances?
Every year, thousands of medical workers leave Serbia and the surrounding Balkan countries for Germany, where hospital and retirement homes are more than willing to dish out hefty sums to intermediaries who bring in fresh employee material. It is a play on people looking for a better life, with plenty of money involved. But who are the key players?
Export of medical health professionals is weakening the public health system in Serbia and is against the interest of its citizens, says Mario Reljanović, a research fellow of the Belgrade Institute of Comparative Law.
Pauperised Serbia pays exuberant amounts for educating doctors who end up a number in the Bureau of Labour registers or find employment in the West; affluent Germany systematically educates fewer doctors than it needs because it will always be able to recruit them from countries that “have not made it” in their transition to capitalism.