Minister calls for more Swiss doctors

Switzerland needs to train more health care professionals and stop being so reliant on foreign staff to plug shortages, the interior minister says.

Didier Burkhalter was speaking at a conference on national health policy. In a speech he said the cabinet would recommend cantons expand their capacity at universities or make use of existing spaces more efficiently.

According to estimates of staffing level requirements, due to be presented by the government in the spring, 1,200 doctors will need to be trained every year and around 5,000 additional specialists.

Switzerland has been party to a World Health Organization code of conduct on recruitment since the spring, which aims to stop a domino effect of health professionals moving to the wealthiest countries and leaving behind a gap in poorer nations.

Swiss employers are ill-informed about such migrations, a study presented during the conference noted.