Monday, July 18, 2011

Where are all the doctors?

An article in one of Cordoba's papers today about a shortage of doctors in the province.

Well, its a kind of a shortage. In actual fact there are lots of doctors in the province- 18,418 are registered. That amounts to one doctor for every 179 inhabitants, which is way better than the 1 per 600 recommended by the WHO.

Part of the problem is distribution- 70% are in Cordoba capital.

And part of the problem is that there is a shortage of specialists. The paper reports that only about one third are specialists. And of those, 90% are in the capital.

One of the problems seems to be that there aren't enough 'residency' places for recent graduates to be trained in a specialty. And another is encouraging doctors to live in the interior of the province. I imagine it may be much worse in some of the other provinces. Some of these problems no doubt sound familiar to Australians in rural areas.

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