At least 10,000 healthcare providers are waiting with their arms crossed hoping to be employed soon. Of that 10,000 at least 7,000 of them are doctors according to the president of the Medical College of Honduras (CMH) Suyapa Figueroa.

“The government is preoccupied with hiring foreign doctors and healthcare providers despite the thousands of qualified Hondurans waiting for jobs.” Said Ms. Figueroa. The situation as it relates to auxiliary nurses is similar since at least 2,000 are waiting for the results of a content announced by health authorities.

“The main problem is that the jobs get covered sporadically which makes it so that the number of people who need to work to get the work done are not working.” Says the president of the national association of nurses and auxiliary nurses of Honduras, Josue Orellana. According to Figueroa and Orellana the solution is to invst more in Honduran professionals.

Delia Rivas, Honduras’s health minister announced in February that throughout the year there would be various contests to help unemployed qualified medical professionals and the first one happened in May and sought to provide 200 medical professionals with employment. El Heraldo reached out to the health minister for more information concerning the limbo health care providers find themselves in but didn’t get any comments back.

This was an El Heraldo article originally published in Spanish.