Clinics face shortage of 12,000 doctors – Health Ministry (video)

More than 12,000 doctor positions remain vacant in Uzbekistan’s polyclinics, Health Minister Asilbek Khudoyorov said on December 23 during a session of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis.

“Unfortunately, despite the large number of higher education institutions operating in the country, we still face a serious shortage of medical personnel,” the minister said.

According to Khudoyorov, out of 112,000 doctor positions allocated for polyclinics nationwide, more than 12,000 are currently unfilled. In addition, due to the lack of medical staff, doctors are working in more than 19,000 positions with workloads exceeding one full-time rate.

Breaking the figures down by region, the number of vacant doctor positions currently stands at 1,216 in Kashkadarya Region, 1,256 in Surkhandarya Region, and 1,436 in Tashkent Region. At the primary healthcare level, there is also a shortage of 3,000 family doctors.

“The main problems concern four categories of specialists: resuscitation specialists, pediatricians, gynecologists, and radiologists. To address this, we have moved to a system of targeted clinical residency and targeted quotas. Through tripartite contracts, these positions will be filled on a mandatory basis in the regions,” Khudoyorov said.