Germany seeks to facilitate access to future doctors from Ukraine to labour market

The German government is weighing regulatory changes to make it easier for Ukrainian medical students to continue their studies and become doctors in the country.

Source: German Ministry of Health, writes Zeit, as reported by European Pravda 

Details: According to the Ministry of Health, the federal government is presently exploring a legislative modification that would allow Ukrainian doctors with incomplete medical degrees to continue their studies in Germany.

Doctors who have already completed their training will not be affected by this.

The department also stated that the federal government does not need to make any legal changes to award professional licences to federal state authorities.

This was done in response to government demands and statistics from the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, which discovered that more than 1,400 Ukrainian doctors who relocated to Germany following the full-scale Russian invasion of their nation are still waiting for a licence to practise.

Since February 2022, at least 1,674 Ukrainian doctors who fled the country have sought medical licences in Germany.

Only 187 applications have been approved, while 1,402 are still being considered.

Ukrainians aren't the only ones forced to wait for a while before they acquire their licences.

Doctors from countries outside the European Union often require 15 months to three years to receive a licence to practise medicine.

According to official figures, more than 800,000 Ukrainians in Germany are of working age, with roughly one-quarter of them employed.

In June, Alexander Dobrindt, the president of the Bavarian opposition party CSU in the Bundestag, asked for the expulsion of unemployed Ukrainian migrants from Germany, which was condemned by the federal coalition parties.

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