The licensing of foreign doctors continues to raise widespread controversy among Moroccan doctors and their affiliated bodies, as they expressed their rejection of the wording of the draft law, which was approved by Parliament.
It is expected that a group of professional bodies for doctors will send a letter to the Prime Minister and the Speakers of the House of Representatives and Councilors regarding the repercussions of approving Bill 33/21 in its current form.
The doctors considered, through a draft letter that Hespress newspaper obtained a copy of, and which is waiting for the bodies to mark it before directing it to the aforementioned authorities, that the aforementioned draft law “opened the door wide for the practice of the medical profession without restriction or condition by foreign doctors, without taking into account For the simplest conditions of expertise or equivalence, as well as canceling the powers of the National Doctors’ Authority to follow up on the situation and limiting it only to the role of registration in a sector that is considered vital, which directly affects the principles of the royal high speech, which urges raising the health level in our country, by opening the door of the sector. In front of some global competencies and qualitative initiatives.
The letter stressed that this decision would put the health of Moroccan citizens at the mercy of foreigners, "who will practice the profession without oversight or accountability in our country, and will not come to Morocco out of love to strengthen its health system, but rather in search of making huge profits as soon as possible."
The doctors explained that allowing foreigners to work in Morocco, and before that the passing of a law allowing Moroccan and foreign capital to invest in the medical sector, could turn Morocco into a fertile ground for the spread of “health spaces outside supervision”, which will contribute to luring “customers” through the various available methods. , thus imposing competitive relations that will inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of health services, and increase the suffering of citizens, who will not be able to go to expensive treatment centers.
The doctors held the government of Saad al-Din al-Othmani responsible for its inability to control the management of this sector, and for not integrating medical institutions, such as the National Physicians Authority, into formulating draft laws, which resulted in emptying university hospitals of medical personnel, and the same applies to medical colleges.
The same source added that “the optimal management of the health system necessarily goes through rationalizing the available capabilities, and defining needs and priorities.
The bodies themselves called for the approval of a national health council, to expedite the withdrawal of the project, and to rely first on the Moroccan frameworks and the capabilities and qualifications available at each level, “and if it becomes clear that there is a need to involve foreigners to cover the shortage, then appropriate legal and political action can be taken.”
The same bodies mentioned that they had submitted amendments to the draft law urging the granting of full powers to the National Council of Physicians to evaluate competencies and follow up on their practice so that they could practice in the homeland like a Moroccan doctor.
She added, “In order to preserve Moroccan sovereignty over the sector, we submitted a proposal for an amendment that requires 50 percent of Moroccan doctors to be employed in foreign clinics. The private sector must include specializations that are not available in Morocco, and limit them also to university medical education.
The House of Representatives had unanimously approved, in a plenary session, draft Law No. 33.21, which provides for changing and supplementing Law No. 131.13 related to the practice of medicine.