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No Work for Doctors
Janet McGiffin / 12 March 2008
“Egypt has so many doctors that they can’t use any more,” reports one of the numerous Iraqi doctors who have settled in Cairo to wait out the war in Iraq. “Egyptian doctors go to the Sudan and to the Gulf to work because there isn’t any work here.”
The economic and social factors creating the doctor glut in Egypt are complicated but the result is that Iraqi doctors who had hoped to remain active in their professional work in Cairo until is safe to return to Iraq, are instead sitting in their Cairo apartments with nothing to do.
Even if there were work for Iraqi doctors, obtaining the necessary Egyptian medical license is difficult and expensive. “When we left Iraq a year ago, we thought my MD licence in Egypt was the same in Iraq,” explains one Iraqi doctor who asked not to use his name due to fears for his safety—the same fear that caused him to leave Iraq. “The same is true for my wife who is a dentist. We had heard that Egypt had reciprocal licensing agreements with Jordan and we thought Iraq would be the same.”
Not the case. For foreign health professionals, gaining a license in Egypt is little different that it would be in Europe or North America. It involves in-hospital training plus a licensing examination. And in Cairo, everything carries a high fee. So this Iraqi doctor, who left everything behind when he fled Iraq and who needs a steady income to support his family, found a bio-medical job working in a company that makes medical devices. Then fortune smiled and he met a sympathetic Egyptian doctor who wanted to start an outreach clinic for handicapped Egyptians who have chronic incurable illnesses—a category that fits many Iraqi patients who are suffering war-related injuries and trauma. So now this Iraqi doctor and dentist are helping the Egyptian in his outreach clinic, helping both Egyptian and Iraqi patients.
“All my Iraqi medical colleagues who are living in Egypt and Syria, all of us have the same difficulty getting a license to work. Some of my friends who failed to get their license, they decided to continue studying. From the wars in Iraq we have a lot of experience in serious illnesses—cancer, psychiatric cases, blood diseases, neurological disorders. But it’s expensive to study in Egypt as a foreigner. For a MA in oncology, radiology, it’s 3,500 Egyptians Pounds ($643.00 US)for the first year and 1,500 Egyptian Pounds ($275) for the second year.”
This amount is small compared to licensing fees in Europe or North America, but it’s beyond the resources of an Iraqi doctor who arrived in Cairo with his family and some suitcases. Even Iraqis who have financial resources still in Iraq can have difficulty accessing them. “I asked at the UN if there is money to help us study. We all want not to forget our medicine. But the UN doesn’t have money for this.”
Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond, Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo, who is trying to help Iraqi refugees get resettled in countries where their skills can be useful, advises some Iraqi medical professionals to apply for work in non-profit organizations that need doctors in developing countries.
“Iraqis should stop think of going to the US or Canada, but rather go to places like Malawi or Sierra Leon, for example, or countries with high numbers of refugees or displaced persons, where they need doctors,” she counsels, believing that, because of their experience in the years of wars in Iraq, Iraqi doctors have a lot to offer.
