As a result of the shortage of cadres, the regime is studying raising the retirement age for doctors to 70 years

ARK News… The head of the Doctors Syndicate of the Assad regime, "Ghassan Findi," said in an interview with media outlets affiliated with the Assad regime that the syndicate is studying raising the retirement age for doctors to cover the shortage of medical staff, especially in the eastern and southern regions, as he put it.

He stated that the condition for the extension is for the practice of medical work and does not include administrative work, pointing out that it is proposed to be raised between 65-70 years, but the age of 65 is the most appropriate according to the estimates of the medical official.

He added that raising the retirement age is one of the solutions to cover the shortage in the medical staff by preserving the experienced, in addition to attracting new doctors through the comparisons of the Ministries of Health and Higher Education, as he described it.

The doctor is referred to the retirement age when he reaches 60 years at the present time, and the retirement salary for doctors reached 25 thousand pounds in the year 2021, then it was raised in the year 2022 to 40 thousand, to record its last increase with a ceiling of 80 thousand pounds only.

In the latest statistics announced by the Syndicate, the number of retired and deceased doctors is close to 5,000, and the total number of physicians affiliated with the Syndicate is 27,000. The end-of-service salary is one million Syrian pounds, and the death compensation is 600,000 Syrian pounds.

Due to the shortage of medical staff in the areas controlled by the regime, the Ministry of Defense in the government of the Assad regime issued a decision in 2021 to allow doctors to perform compulsory service within the nearest medical center, within the framework of procedures that limit the migration of doctors due to compulsory service, according to its claim.

The head of the Deir-Ez-Zour Doctors Syndicate, Shawqi Ghazi, stated earlier that there are currently 125 doctors in Deir-Ez-Zour, between specialists and residents, while in 2010 their number was more than 1,250, indicating that there is a significant shortage in the number of doctors, as their number in some specialties does not exceed one or two doctors. , while there is a complete absence of precise terms of reference.

Media outlets close to the Assad regime said that going to doctors’ clinics has become a major concern for many Syrians, in light of the high wages set by each doctor, regardless of his specialization, in addition to the high prices of medicine and treatment in hospitals, in parallel with the recent doubling of drug prices.

Many hospitals in the areas controlled by the regime are witnessing a clear shortage of their medical supplies, staff, and some drug groups, until laboratory tests were prolonged, which prompted patients to secure them from outside these hospitals, despite the alleged assurances that hospitals would raise their needs for medical materials and supplies, and a source in the Ministry of Finance revealed that he evaluated cases Misuse in the health insurance sector exceeded 2.2 billion Syrian pounds.

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