Morocco Debates Controversial Plan to Shorten Medical Training Amid Doctor Shortage

Rather than reducing the training period for general practitioners from 7 to 6 years, as decided by the Ministry of Higher Education, parliamentary groups propose to create medical schools and a university hospital center (CHU) in each of the 12 regions of Morocco in order to address the shortage of medical personnel, reports the daily Al Massae.

For the deputy Mustapha Ibrahimi, member of the PJD group in the House of Representatives, the State would benefit from taking incentive measures to encourage doctors to obtain their accreditation in order to train medical students. These measures will make it possible to have around 300 supervisors to fill the shortage of health personnel.

Read: Morocco Shortens Medical School to 6 Years in Healthcare Reform Push

Thus, the medical staff currently composed of around 23,000 doctors could be doubled, according to the parliamentarian who specifies that in Morocco there is a ratio of 7.2 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, which does not meet the WHO criteria which recommends 13 doctors for the same number of inhabitants.

The decision has also sparked a major controversy on social networks. Some Internet users believe that the decision to reduce the duration of medical training alone will not be enough to address the shortage of medical personnel and that parallel support measures must be taken.