The first president of the Court of Auditors, Zineb El Adaoui, expressed concern about the shortage of doctors, nurses and health technicians in Morocco. According to her, the deficit will become more significant in the years to come, because the current rate of hiring in the health sector will not be able to cover the needs resulting from the departure forecasts as early as 2028.
During a joint plenary session of the two Chambers of Parliament, which was held on Tuesday, devoted to the presentation of a presentation on the actions of the Court of Auditors for the year 2021, Zineb El Adaoui stressed that the distribution of health professionals does not depend on objective criteria, leading to territorial inequalities and imbalances in the level of coverage of the population.
The official also revealed that adequate coverage for the population represented by 1.45 workers per 1,000 people, as determined by the World Health Organization (WHO), remains difficult to achieve, given that reaching this threshold depends on the capacity of the training system to maintain the current rate of the number of graduates and their retention in the health system.
In 2021, the Ministry of Health employed 59,127 people, including doctors, nurses and technicians, or 10.4% of the total civil servants, with personnel expenditure amounting to around 10.4 billion dirhams , or more than 44% of the ministry’s total budget, or nearly 0.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
The number of doctors at the national level has increased from 19,444 in 2011 to 27,881 in 2021, distributed between 13,682 doctors in the public sector, or 49%, and 14,199 doctors in the private sector, or 51%. Similarly, the number of nurses and health technicians in the public sector increased from 29,025 to 37,789 during the same period.
Thus, the overall rate of density of health managers per 10,000 inhabitants rose from 15.1% in 2011 to 17.1% in 2021, with a slight increase of 2 points. Although this rate increased by 1.3 points between 2011 and 2020, it fell by 0.3 points among doctors in the public sector.
With regard to the distribution of medical personnel according to the healthcare networks, based on the total number of doctors, the latter practicing in a hospital environment in 2020 constituted approximately 52% at the level of the network of primary care establishments and 16% at the level other structures. The manager noted that this combination would hinder the establishment of an effective organization chart.
The presentation presented by El Adaoui also points out that the current rate of employment of doctors at the level of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection indicates a continuous decline in the number of health executives over the next few years, warning that the continuation of the current employment rate will not cover the needs resulting from the departure forecasts from 2028.