BERLIN: Thousands of Syrian doctors work in Germany, and the fall of Bashar Assad is raising concern over the potential consequences for the health sector if many of them were to return home.
\nGermany became a leading destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and some politicians were quick to start talking about encouraging the return of at least some after rebels took Damascus earlier this month. Others noted that the exiles include many well-qualified people and said their departure would hurt Germany \u2014 particularly that of doctors and other medical staff.
\n\u201cWhole areas in the health sector would fall away if all the Syrians who work here now were to leave our country,\u201d Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said last week. \u201cFor us it is important that we make the offer to the Syrians who are here, who have a job, who have integrated, who are crime-free, whose children go to school, to stay here and be there for our economy.\u201d
\nSyrians have become a factor in a health sector that struggles to fill jobs, part of a wider problem Germany has with an aging population and a shortage of skilled labor.
\nThe head of the German Hospital Federation, Gerald Gass, says Syrians now make up the largest single group of foreign doctors, accounting for 2 percent to 3 percent.
\nAn estimated 5,000 Syrian doctors work in hospitals alone. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who puts the total number of Syrian doctors at over 6,000, says they are \u201cindispensable\u201d to health care.
\nGass said the picture hospital operators are getting from Syrian doctors so far is \u201cvery varied.\u201d Some \u2014 particularly those with many relatives still in Syria \u2014 are considering a quick return if the situation proves stable, while others feel at ease and well-integrated in Germany and want to stay. But \u201cno looming mass movement toward Syria is recognizable\u201d at present.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not the case that patient care would collapse in Germany if all Syrian doctors returned now,\u201d Gass said. \u201cBut of course we have the situation that these people often work in smaller groups at individual sites\u201d \u2014 whose quick departure could force temporary local closures.
\n\u201cWe are well advised to treat these people respectfully,\u201d Gass said. \u201cAnd yes, hospital owners are giving thought to how they could fill these jobs.\u201d
\nMany Syrian doctors have made Germany their home
\nDr. Hiba Alnayef, an assistant pediatric doctor at a hospital in Nauen, just outside Berlin, said she has been asked in the last 10 days, \u201cwhat if the Syrians all go back now?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know \u2014 some want to, but it\u2019s very difficult and uncertain,\u201d said Aleppo-born Alnayef, who has spent much of her life outside Syria and came to Germany from Spain in 2016. She said it\u2019s something she thinks about, \u201cbut I have a homeland here too now.\u201d
\nShe said she and other Syrian doctors and pharmacists would like to build cooperation between Germany and Syria.
\n\u201cThe Germans need specialists, Syria needs support … renovation, everything is destroyed now,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we can work well together to help both societies.\u201d
\nAlnayef said the German health system would have \u201ca big problem\u201d if only part of its Syrian doctors decided to leave \u2014 \u201cwe are understaffed, we are burned out, we are doing the work of several doctors.\u201d She said Germany has offered \u201ca safe harbor,\u201d but that discrimination and racism have been issues and integration is a challenge.
\nDr. Ayham Darouich, 40, who came from Aleppo to Germany to study medicine in 2007 and has had his own general practice in Berlin since 2021, said that \u201cas far as I have heard, none of my circle of friends wants to go back.\u201d
\n\u201cThey have their family or their practices here, they have their society here,\u201d Darouich said. German concerns that many might return are \u201ca bit exaggerated, or unjustified.\u201d
\nBut he said Germany needs to do more to persuade medical professionals it trains to stay in the country, and that it could also do more to make itself attractive to foreigners needed to fill the gaps.
\n\u201cWe see that the nurses and medical professionals in hospitals earn relatively little in comparison with the US or Switzerland,\u201d Darouich said, and poorly regulated working hours and understaffed hospitals are among factors that \u201cdrive people away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN: Thousands of Syrian doctors work in Germany, and the fall of Bashar Assad is raising concern over the potential consequences for the health sector if many of them were to return home. Germany became a leading destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and some politicians were quick to start talking about encouraging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-450368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n