Are there too many or too few physicians in Spain? Migration: the eternal resource

At the end of the last century, several Spanish doctors had to migrate overseas looking for a decent job. No decent jobs were offered by then in Spain. Last decade, the lack of doctors was a problem and a great social alarm was born. Mechanisms to attract doctors form overseas and medical training, both uncontrolled, were settled in, to get the numbers right. The result was a surplus of qualified health professionals. Today, overseas doctors who were invited to come and native doctors, both, trained for specific health situations have to leave the country. An extraordinary planning never heard of in neighbouring countries due to its “inefficiency”. It was characteristic its lack of capability to take advantage of health professional's abilities – doctors and nurses – its lack of population's health education, its waste of resources in training and its uncontrolled immigration.

ResumenA finales del siglo pasado, numerosos médicos españoles tuvieron que emigrar buscando un puesto de trabajo digno que no ofrecían en España. La década pasada el problema era, sin embargo, un déficit de profesionales que creó tal alarma social que se pusieron en marcha mecanismos que llevaron a la formación y a la inmigración descontrolada de profesionales para cuadrar las cuentas. El resultado ha sido un exceso de personal cualificado que excede la demanda. Hoy, los médicos autóctonos y todos aquellos invitados a venir y formados para una realidad sanitaria concreta se tienen que ir. Una planificación sin precedentes, por lo ineficiente, en países de nuestro entorno, caracterizada por la incapacidad de aprovechar la formación de sus profesionales sanitarios –médicos y titulados de enfermería–, por la falta de educación para la salud de la población, por el derroche en formación y por una inmigración no controlada.