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Healthcare workers in Albania - Stay or leave?

28:35

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January 8, 2024

Germany has too few healthcare workers and is trying to plug the gaps with recruitment drives in poorer countries like Albania. As a result, many young and well-trained people are packing up and leaving the country.

Word has got around in Albania that the German health and care sector has a skills shortage. Many qualified healthcare workers have decided to leave for Germany. In Tirana, twenty-two-year-old Alketa Kaja is doing a special German language course for healthcare and nursing to prepare for her new life. A German clinic has offered her a job and is paying the course fees. Only 50% of healthcare workers trained in Albania remain in the country. One of them is Kastriot Qehaja. Even though his job is strenuous and poorly paid, he doesn’t want to leave his country. Someone needs to look after the elderly people whose children have gone to work in western Europe.

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