Between 140-160 doctors could retire in the next five years, the report found.

Many doctors in Estonia work long past retirement age. There are concerns that more will retire earlier in the coming years, which will worsen the doctors shortage and increase the workload, said Health Board Deputy Director General Ragnar Vaiknemets told Monday's "Aktuaalne kaamera".

He said the problem is also becoming worse as more doctors are leaving the profession than entering.

There are approximately 7,000 registered Estonian doctors, but 2,000 work abroad. There are 80 family doctors alone who could claim a list, but work elsewhere.

"Those doctors we have on the register who are of working age and working somewhere other than the health sector, to look into why they're working elsewhere, is there any way we can attract them back?" said Vaiknemets.

Priit Tohvr, head of sustainable development at Tallinn's Northern Estonia Medical Center (PERH), said a quarter of young doctors choose to work in other sectors or abroad.

"You could think about the fact that we have a person in health education for six years, we have six years to sell them on the idea of working as a doctor in Estonia," said Tohver. "If we do not get it right, a quarter of them leave, then maybe we're doing something wrong in those six years."

Dr Külli Kingo, dean of medical sciences at the University of Tartu, said she has seen a trend of doctors returning from abroad.

"The way I see it is that not everyone can be a doctor, the health system is wider. That's where we need people," said Kingo. "On the other hand, I'm seeing more and more of them coming into general practice straight out of school and only later choosing a specialty, which I think is the right thing to do, because people need time to make choices and leave to go abroad – I'm seeing this trend of them coming back."

Tohvr said it is clear that with today's model, Estonia does not have enough healthcare workers to keep up with demand.

"What we need to think about here is not just hospitals on their own, but we need to think about the whole health system to think about how we prevent diseases, how we treat them more at home and in the community," he told AK.

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