Health Board Says Russian Doctors Welcome, Despite Shorter Residency Period
The Health Board has denied that Russian doctors are being kept from working in Estonia by a bureaucratic detail, as was reported by Eesti Päevaleht on Tuesday.
The board said in a press release that doctors from outside of the EU must meet certain requirements, including the three- to five-year residency period which has kept Russian doctors away, but that the period can be substituted by work experience or an exam at the University of Tartu.
Eesti Päevaleht reported that because Russian doctors work only one to two years in hospitals before receiving their medical licenses, they do not meet the requirements set by the Estonian Health Board.
The board said that it welcomes all medical staff from outside of the European Union who successfully apply to work in Estonia.
A spokeswoman for Ida-Viru County's central hospital told the daily that the institution lacks 20 MDs, but 120 Russian doctors have expressed interest in working there in the past five years alone.