Ugandan doctor’s fight to practice in Germany

DW (English)

After years of practicing medicine in Uganda, Dr. Melk Kunyu is battling to enter the field in Germany. Although hospitals are lacking staff, bureaucracy is stalling his dream.

Transcript

00:00Germany is facing a healthcare crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed, nursing homes are understaffed,

00:07and patients are waiting longer than ever. The root cause? A growing shortage of skilled

00:13medical professionals. But here is the twist. Doctors who are trained, experienced and ready

00:19to help are in Germany. So what's stopping them?

00:22When it comes to the practicability of everything, you almost think that, well, do these people

00:29actually need health workers or the... For foreign doctors, especially from non-EU countries,

00:36their path to practising in Germany is long, bureaucratic, and for many, discouraging.

00:42Kunyu has, for the last two years, been going through processes that will allow him to work

00:47here. He knows Germany's red tape all too well.

00:50You have to wait long, and everything takes its sweet time. So initially it took like one

00:57month for me to get a reply of the fact that they have started working on my things. But

01:02then they told me the documents weren't properly certified or something like that. We had used

01:08the wrong certifier at the first time. So like, they basically were telling me to do the whole

01:15thing of certifying again.

01:16The frustration and lack of information prompted him to set up a YouTube channel aimed at helping

01:21other Africans navigate Germany better. He gives advice on what aspiring healthcare workers must

01:28prepare for in Germany. Kunyu spends his days creating educational content and studying for

01:41one of two major exams, the so-called Kentonese Prüfung. It's like deep, deep medicine. And so the

01:47requirement from this is, it's almost like you're repeating medical school in a way. You have to

01:53to know all the things, but of course in German, but also the success rate of it is, many people

02:00quite complain about it, especially in this part of the state, like NRV. And if that wasn't enough,

02:08each state has its own rules. What's accepted in Berlin might not be valid in North Ryan Westphalia.

02:15It's a bureaucratic maze. Last year, there were some 47,400 positions in Germany's healthcare sector,

02:23left vacant due to labor shortages. And yet, foreign trained doctors are stuck in the system,

02:30waiting for approvals while hospitals go unstaffed.

02:34The process is quite rigorous and it's not, let me just say it's not for the faint-hearted. If you're

02:39not willing to go all in, it is very easy to give up. Kunyu pushes through. Two years in,

02:45language mastered. First exam passed, now preparing for the final test.

02:52But I try not to be, not to be negative. I know I have done so many exams in my life,

03:00it's just one of those exams. Plus there are so many success rates. I know of colleagues who have

03:05come from Uganda. I know of two colleagues. One of them is living in München who finished this exam.

03:10Germany's healthcare system needs doctors. The doctors are ready. But the system needs to be ready for them too.

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