Turkey’s Doctors Are Leaving, the Latest Casualty of Spiraling Inflation

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Doctors, worn down by grueling hours and violence, are emigrating in rising numbers, undermining one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s signature achievements.

ISTANBUL — Anxiety rose after an assistant doctor died last fall when she plowed her car into the back of a truck after a long shift.

Then there were the growing cases of violence. An assistant doctor abandoned his career after a patient stabbed him in the stomach and hand. A pregnant nurse was hospitalized after being kicked in the belly.

The worsening economy and soaring inflation, which has reduced some doctors’ salaries close to the level of the minimum wage, has brought many to a tipping point, driving them in growing numbers to search for better opportunities abroad.

Their departures are a sad indictment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who burnished his own reputation by expanding universal health care over his 18 years in power. It was one of his signature achievements. For many of his supporters, that action alone remains their main reason to support him.

But the strains of those overhauls wrought by Mr. Erdogan, in addition to those brought by the pandemic — and now galloping inflation — have undermined the very professionals on whom the health system depends.
Doctors complain of a grinding workload, diminishing returns for their work, a drastic loss of respect for the profession under Mr. Erdogan, and an increase in physical violence from their own patients.

More than 1,400 Turkish doctors left their posts to work abroad last year, and 4,000 over the past decade, according to the Turkish Medical Association, the largest association of medical professionals in the country. Many more are preparing applications and have requested certificates of good standing from the organization, officials said. » | Carlotta Gall | Monday, February 7, 2022

Emigrating to Germany? I ARTE.tv Documentary | December 2021

British Families Want Out as More Seek Relaxed Life Abroad
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A majority of middle-class families want to leave Britain because it no longer offers them an adequate quality of life, a new survey has concluded.

Researchers found almost two in three families wanted to emigrate overseas because of the poor weather, rude locals and a celebrity-obsessed culture.

Families say they also want to escape the economic downturn, expensive housing and the “loss of community spirit and neighbourliness” in British society.

The survey, conducted by the University of Huddersfield, also found most wanted a new, more relaxed life in a community with a more optimistic “can do” attitude.

Despite celebrating a year when British national pride is arguably at its highest, families admitted they wanted their “children to grow up in a country with a stronger sense of community than they believe exists in the UK”.

Australia was the first country of choice, with almost one in three wanting to move Down Under, followed by the United States, New Zealand, Canada and a host of European countries such as Spain, France and Italy. » | Andrew Hough | Thursday, November 01, 2012

Fears of Anti-Semitism: More and More French Jews Emigrating to Israel

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: More and more French Jews are buying homes in Israel amid fears of rising anti-Semitism in France. Many complain of being harrassed in public and feel the country is no longer a safe place to raise their children. In the wake of the Toulouse attacks, the wave of emigration is only likely to increase.

Many must have been reminded of the treatment of Jews under the Third Reich. Shortly after the attack on a Jewish school in the southern French city of Toulouse on Monday, school principals in the city walked into classrooms and asked the Jewish pupils to come forward. "We ask you to leave the class and join the other Jewish children, who are in a locked and safe location."

It was intended as a precaution in response to a request from the Jewish community. But it also highlights the degree to which many Jews in France feel that they are a threatened and increasingly excluded minority. Every year, these feelings prompt thousands to take a dramatic decision, namely, to pack their belongings and move to a crisis zone: Israel. They feel safer there.

Five years ago, Linda moved from Paris to Canada and then to the Israeli port city of Ashdod. Only a week ago, she, her husband and their two sons faced a hail of rockets from the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Linda, who doesn't want to be identified by her last name, is delighted to be living in France no longer. "It's much safer here than in France," she says.

"Anti-Semitism has become unbearable there," she says. "Children are harassed on their way to school just because they're Jews." She adds that she was also the victim of such harassment in the middle of the Champs-Élysées in Paris. "I was wearing a necklace with a Star of David attached to it," she recalls. "Someone barged into me. I said to him: 'You ought to excuse yourself!' All he said was that he didn't apologize to Jews." » | Gil Yaron in Tel Aviv | Thursday, March 22, 2012

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Der Original-Artikel:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Jüdische Fluchtwelle: Lieber Raketenhagel als Leben in Frankreich – Immer mehr französische Juden kaufen sich Wohnungen in Israel - schon lange vor den Mordattacken fühlten sie sich mit ihren Familien in der alten Heimat nicht mehr sicher. Der Anschlag von Toulouse könnte die Auswanderungswelle noch verstärken. » | Von Gil Yaron, Tel Aviv | Mittwoch, 21. März 2012

YNET NEWS: A Jew-free Europe: Op-ed: The ongoing process of Jews leaving European continent is tragic but unavoidable » | Giulio Meotti | Thursday, March 22, 2012

Net Migration Target to Be Missed, Warn Academics
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: David Cameron is to fall well short of his pledge to cut immigration to less than 100,000 by 2015, Oxford University academics have warned.

A study by the Migration Observatory today predicts the Government will only get half way towards its target despite major reform of immigration visas.

The body, made up of experts from the leading university, said net migration - the difference between those arriving and those leaving the UK - could still be running as high as 167,000 in four years time.

Figures last month showed net migration is currently running at 242,000 – a six year high – after rising for the fifth quarter in a row.

The Coalition has already been accused of watering down its pledge after Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, described it only as an "aspiration".

And the Migration Observatory now estimates Government reform will only reduce the numbers by 75,000 leaving ministers well short of the target. » | Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor | Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Irish Workers Leave the Emerald Isle
The great recession has triggered yet another wave of Irish emigration. WSJ's Don Duncan reports on how that is playing out in the national election

New Irish Exodus To America
SKY NEWS: The number of people travelling from Ireland to New York to find work is rising, according to the city's Irish community leaders.

Wilders Makes Half of Dutch Muslims Want to Emigrate
EXPATICA: More than half of the people with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds in the Netherlands say they would consider leaving the country due to the growing popularity of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders. A third say they would definitely like to emigrate.

The figures emerge from a survey by research bureau Motivaction for public service broadcaster NCRV’s current affairs programme Netwerk. The programme commissioned the survey in response to the success of Mr Wilders' rightwing Freedom Party in the recent European parliamentary elections. Since March this year, leading pollster Maurice de Hond's Peil.nl has measured support for the populist Freedom Party at more than 30 percent, which would theoretically make it the largest party in the Dutch parliament if there were an election.
 


Discrimination



Although three quarters of the Turkish and Moroccan Dutch people questioned in the Motivaction survey said they felt at home in the Netherlands, 57 percent said they now felt less comfortable in the country due to the growing popularity of the Freedom Party. Two out of five said they felt they were now discriminated against more often, and almost a quarter said they regularly experienced discrimination. Nearly three quarters said they thought Mr Wilders had intensified negative feelings towards Muslims among the Dutch public.


Nearly twenty percent said they agreed with Mr Wilders on some points and could appreciate why people would vote for him. However, half of the respondents said the growing support for Mr Wilders made them feel angry and disappointed, and 22 percent said he aroused feelings of fear and hatred. Ninety per cent said they thought a Wilders government would be a fiasco, and only 4 percent thought he would be able to offer any solutions to the country's problems.
 


The survey asked respondents what they saw as the best strategy to counter Mr Wilders. Forty percent thought the best policy was simply to ignore the Freedom Party. Thirty-five percent favoured entering into debate with Mr Wilders and his supporters. Twenty five percent saw vociferous protest as the answer, and 11 percent wanted to see a Muslim political party established to represent their interests. >>> | Monday, July 06, 2009

Immigration Out of Control: Brits Getting Out in Their Droves
THE TELEGRAPH: Britain is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration with more than half a million foreigners arriving to live here in a single year, new figures show.

Last year, 510,000 foreign migrants came to the UK to stay for at least 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time 400,000 people, more than half of whom were British, emigrated.

An exodus on this scale - amounting to one British citizen leaving the country every three minutes - has not been seen in the UK for almost 50 years.

Overall in 2006, there were a record 591,000 new arrivals. Only 14 per cent of these were Britons coming home. Immigration out-paces British exodus (more) By Philip Johnston

National Statistics: Emigration from UK reaches 400,000 in 2006 (PDF)

Tegraph Speakers Corner: Why are so many Britons leaving?

Mark Alexander