Healthcare system in Morocco

Author:Karim Moutchou Medical Student, Fez Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy

Morocco, the birth place of millions immigrants living around the world, is seeing a new rise in the figures of “VIP immigration” as an important part of its most needed population is deciding to leave the country for a better social and more importantly professional life. Moroccan doctors and medical students are interested more and more in Germany as a primary destination. The German nation seems to have opened its arms for foreign doctors more than any other country in the last decades. This situation has raised at the same time hope and concerns among everyone involved on both sides of the Mediterranean and it presents both new opportunities and challenges to the receiving and sending countries.

In 2010, The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD said that at least 2.6 millions of people born in Morocco are living outside of it, a percentage close to 10% of the number of Moroccan citizenship holders, making it thusly the 10thlargest population of immigrants around the world, a very advanced position because morocco is only in the 40thplace when it comes to the total number of citizens. The same report pointed out that 7000 of those immigrants are doctors. But it seems there will soon be more thousands of physicians crossing the Mediterranean or the Atlantic sea to first world countries.

The number of practicing physicians in Germany rose from 237.000 to 385.000 between 1990 and 2017 with low modifications in the general population numbers. Without neglecting the clear fact that German doctors are also immigrating to other countries, mainly European Union members as a medical degree from any EU member allows its holder to practice in all the others. The search for better opportunities around the continent and in places like the United States and Canada made the immigration to Germany necessary to balance the one out of it