This measure, applied for at least a year, “has not prevented the migration of medical skills”, conceded the Minister of Higher Education.
Preventing doctors from leaving Algeria by refusing to authenticate their diplomas is the solution found by the authorities to remedy a continuous exodus since the 1990s. This freeze, applied for at least a year, was not openly assumed by Algiers, but on July 13, the power came out of its silence through the voice of the Minister of Higher Education, Kamel Baddari, who responded to the deputy of the Algerian community established in France, Abdelouahab Yagoubi, asking on his page Facebook “how long [was this arbitrariness about individual rights] going to last”.
“As part of the examination of the means aimed at curbing the phenomenon of the exodus abroad of national skills of medical science graduates, the operation of direct authentication of medical science diplomas has been temporarily frozen,” justified Kamel Baddari, specifying that the process will resume once “solutions are proposed to remedy this phenomenon and limit it”.
This beginning of transparency is, however, accompanied by an admission of powerlessness: “The freezing of the authentication of diplomas has not prevented the migration of medical skills, general practitioners and specialists”, concedes the minister, noting that the organizations’ Foreign recruiters go, to obtain certification of diplomas, through “Algerian diplomatic representations abroad or those of their respective countries accredited in Algeria”.
An “absurd bureaucratic stubbornness”
Still unofficial, this measure had already sparked alerts from unions and lawyers. In September 2023, the National Union of Doctors (SNM-UGTA) expressed to Kamel Baddari its “concern” to see this restriction applied only, according to him, to graduates of the faculties of medicine, pharmacy, and dental surgery. The SNM then requested a discussion on this “important question”.
Lyes Merabet, the president of the National Union of Public Health Practitioners (SNPSP), then defended, in a statement to the TSA information site, the right of Algerian doctors to continue their studies abroad and choose the country they wish to settle in. He predicted that The decision would “solve nothing” and only “create unnecessary tensions”.
In addition to France, a classic destination, many Algerian doctors are expatriating to North America or the Gulf countries. Some 15,000 doctors trained in Algeria are said to be active in France. The reasons for departures are known: quest for better salaries and professional development, while many general practitioners cannot find employment in Algeria.
