In the last decade, Spain has seen a loss of 20,000 medical professionals as a result of professionals moving to countries with better average earnings. From the United States to Germany, these are the countries that provide the highest salaries to doctors.
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| [Hospital Universitario Del Sures, Madrid, Spain] |
Young physicians who are leaving the country at a time when an entire generation of white coats is getting ready to retire. The healthcare system in Spain, which normally ranks among the top ten in the world for quality of service, is currently enduring a severe case of brain drain due to a lack of qualified medical professionals. Over 20,000 medical professionals, many of whom had graduated from Iberian universities but had moved to other countries in search of better employment opportunities, have left Spain in just the past decade.
The crisis that has been plaguing the Spanish healthcare system has become especially apparent over the past few weeks, as evidenced by the strikes of healthcare workers in Madrid, the interruptions of services in Cantabria, and the announcement of new mobilizations in Navarra for the coming year. According to an article published by an online newspaper called The Local, medical professionals are grumbling that they have too much work to do and that the facilities where they work do not have enough personnel. The most recent round of union mobilizations has resulted in a new demand being directed toward the government, and that demand is for wage increases.
Gross pay for a newly hired physician in Spain averages around 1,600 euros per month. This is the basic salary. The salary rises over time, as it does in most professions; however, the unions have expressed concern that a sizeable portion of Spanish physicians will retire in the years to come, which will result in hospital wards being unguarded. It is anticipated that tens of thousands of physicians will enter retirement over the course of the next ten years. As a result, it is anticipated that there will be a shortage of approximately 9,000 physicians over the course of the next five years and 18,000 by 2035.
Countries that have a basic salary that is significantly higher than Spain's are Spain's competitors. According to the findings of the International Medical Compensation Report 2021, the annual salaries of American medical professionals are the highest in the world, coming in at an average of 273,000 euros. Doctors in Germany bring in an annual salary of 158,000 euros on average, making them the highest paid professionals in all of Europe. Next in line is France, with an amount of 85,000 euros, followed by the United Kingdom with 119,000 euros. There are Italian physicians working behind the transal-pines, and each one of them makes 60,000 euros per year. Instead, the annual average salary in Spain is just 49,000 euros, making it one of the lowest in Europe.