A piece of stats news has been broken in Poland that the number of surgeons has dropped by a quarter (one fourth, twenty-five percent) as compared to 2006. Within thirteen years. Make a guess: what happened? How did that large number of doctors disappear? Young people stopped being interested in medical studies? No. Make another guess. The demand for surgery is much smaller since society at large is healthier and healthier courtesy of the salutary regulations and decrees of the European Union? No. Make yet another guess. The surgeons emigrated to Western countries? Spot on! Bingo!
The Western intellectual circles regard it as evil to exploit weaker nations, especially the Third World countries. They love calling such behaviour fascism (a very fashionable offensive appellation) or racism or what not. Occupying moral high ground, they applaud sending doctors to Somalia or Nigeria or Bangladesh. Yet somewhat miraculously this principle does not apply when physicians from Eastern Europe keep coming to the Western states, draining East European health care systems. Why shouldn’t they after all? We need them – say Western intellectuals – our societies are growing older, there must be someone willing to take care of them.
How do the Western intellectuals reconcile their indignation at exploiting poorer (Third World) countries with depriving Eastern Europeans of their doctors? Oh, come on, another lofty principle is made use of: human rights, among which the freedom of movement is especially enshrined. So the story goes that “we do not rob the poorer countries of their doctors (engineers, teachers, professionals of any kind): they merely use their human rights and flock to places where they have better economic conditions.”