🇱🇰 1,489 Doctors Left 2022-2024, Costing Rs. 12.5B for tax payers - New reasearch finds

⭕ 1,489 doctors, including specialists, migrated from 2022-2024 due to economic crisis.

⭕ Estimated financial loss to taxpayers: Rs. 12.5B (US$41.5M).

⭕ 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka's healthcare workforce: ~23,000 doctors, incl. 2,800 specialists.

⭕ 1,085 doctors on overseas specialist training; 205 (20%) did not return for PGIM certification.

⭕ 477 doctors left in 2022; 449 left in 2023—higher than civil war years (2006-2009).

⭕ 75 intern doctors did not apply for post-internship posts 2022-2024.

⭕ 1,209 medical officers vacated posts, ~6% of ~20,000 medical officers.

⭕ UK 🇬🇧 NHS & Community Health Service employed 3,082 🇱🇰 doctors in 2024, up 121% from 2019.

⭕ Sri Lanka ranked 4th largest source of international medical graduates in Australia 🇦🇺 (2022).

⭕ Shortage has “serious” impact on patients, caregivers, hospitals.

⭕ Psychiatry, anaesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology, paediatrics most affected.

⭕ Policy suggestions: strict bond enforcement, dual citizenship use, bilateral tax-sharing, better working conditions, improved training infrastructure.

⭕ Urgent, evidence-based action needed to protect healthcare in 🇱🇰 and similar low-income countries.

source: study published in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, UK) titled:
“The Exodus and Its Toll: Sri Lanka’s Economic Crisis and the Migration of Doctors”

#SriLanka