But Merz aligning his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with the far right could exacerbate an existing shortage of skilled workers, said Gerald Gaß, head of the German Hospital Federation. “We fear that many of our colleagues could leave the country.”
Germany’s health system relies heavily on international specialists. Nearly all hospitals (96 percent) have employed specialists from abroad in the past five years, according to a survey of 243 of them published in December by the German Hospital Institute.
Without “colleagues from all over the world … the care available to us in Germany today would not be possible,” national medical associations wrote in an open letter ahead of the election.
The associations warn that with a rise in negative attitudes toward migrants, medical professionals will leave Germany to work elsewhere — leaving hospitals with staffing gaps.
“There are already around 6,000 Syrian doctors working in Germany. This is around 1.5 percent of all medical doctors. If they would leave, the system would suffer,” said Helmut Brand, a professor of European public health at Maastricht University.
Areas outside of cities, where the proportion of foreign professionals is particularly high, would be hit hardest. “Foreign doctors and nurses are particularly important in rural areas with older populations and harsher economic conditions, as hospitals in these regions find it harder to recruit,” Gaß explained.
