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But, although Albania has few doctors in relation to the population, compared to the region, they get the lowest salaries in Europe.
The International Institute for Economic Studies in Vienna calculated the salaries of doctors, comparing them with an average of 15 EU countries. From this calculation, the Vienna experts found that Albania offers the lowest level of wages in relation to the EU average, while Luxembourg offers the highest wages in relation to the EU average.
Low wages and heavy workloads are the cause of medical's emigration - experts say, who also built a gravity map for medical's emigration.
The history of changing doctors' salaries shows a close connection with emigration.
Salaries for doctors in Britain have deteriorated over the past decade and are now below the EU level. This was the main factor that almost 4% of doctors left the UK and went to New Zealand, USA, and Canada.
On the other hand, Britain has become attractive to doctors from southern Europe, such as Italy, Greece, and the Balkans where doctors' salaries are lower than in Britain.
Norway and Switzerland manage to attract medical staff from EU countries as they offer the highest salaries. This factor may be one of the main determinants of why these two countries "import" trained foreign doctors.
Especially Switzerland, which offers wages much higher than EU countries, almost twice as high as the EU average, becoming a magnet for doctors and nurses from Germany, but also from Italy, France and Austria, while Norway has been attractive to health professionals, especially from Sweden, Denmark, and Spain, but also from Poland, Lithuania and Hungary.
While Germany itself has become an importer of doctors from the Balkans, especially from Albania.
Austria has one of the highest reserves of medical staff, in terms of the number of doctors per capita. But the number of graduate doctors in Austria is declining, as doctors' movements are large. On the other hand, the countries of the Western Balkans have the lowest number of doctors per capita and the number of graduates is among the lowest.
Salaries of the health system in the region
Albania ranks among the countries with the fewest doctors (1.2 doctors per 1000 inhabitants), a number that is being reduced due to the mass exodus of white shirts. Albania, not only has fewer doctors, but they are also the worst paid.
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| Graph of Remuneration of employees in the Health Sector |
Last year, Kosovo also increased significantly the salaries of doctors and nurses, with the aim of stopping the exodus of white shirts. Specialist doctors are paid 1195 euros (from 661 euros before); general practitioner 836 euros (out of 566), head nurses 621 euros (out of 472) and first nurses 537 euros (up from 425 previously).