Panama’s Ministry of Health (Minsa) is considering recruiting foreign medical specialists to fill critical vacancies in the public health system, as shortages in cardiology, anesthesiology, and oncology leave entire regions with little or no coverage. Health Minister Fernando Boyd Galindo confirmed on Wednesday, September 9, that hiring professionals from abroad is one of the alternatives being evaluated by the Executive Branch.
What Happened
Boyd Galindo said that resorting to foreign-trained doctors would be a conditional measure, used only when qualified Panamanian physicians are unavailable to fill the positions in question. The announcement comes after Minsa identified cardiology, anesthesiology, and oncology as the specialties facing the most severe shortages in the public system.
The minister highlighted the scale of the problem in the country’s interior, noting that in the Azuero region there is only one cardiologist and one anesthesiologist serving the population.
The shortage is not confined to Minsa facilities. The Social Security Fund (CSS), which operates much of Panama’s public hospital network, currently has 77 vacant specialist positions. Marcos Young, National Director of Health Services and Benefits at the CSS, described the situation as a systemic problem that involves the uneven distribution of specialists, gaps in training pipelines, slow hiring processes, and difficulties retaining doctors in certain regions of the country.
Background
Panama’s public health care is delivered through two main institutions: Minsa, which manages hospitals and clinics nationwide, and the CSS, which provides health services to workers and their families. For years, patients living outside Panama City have often had to travel to the capital to access specialized care, a burden that is especially heavy for those requiring ongoing treatment such as cancer therapy.
As part of its strategy to expand coverage, Minsa has been regionalizing oncology services, opening new points of care in the central provinces and the western region. One of these new service points is located in Bugaba, in the province of Chiriquí, with the aim of bringing specialized treatment closer to patients in the interior and reducing the need to travel to Panama City for certain therapies.
However, expanding services only works if there are specialists available to staff them. The persistent vacancies suggest that the bottleneck is not just infrastructure but the supply and distribution of highly trained physicians.
What This Means for Panama
The proposal to hire foreign specialists signals that the government views the shortage as urgent enough to look beyond the domestic labor market. If implemented, the plan could bring faster relief to regions like Azuero, where a single cardiologist or anesthesiologist must serve an entire population, a situation that poses obvious risks for patients needing time-sensitive care.
The CSS’s 77 vacant positions underscore that the problem is structural rather than isolated, touching on how specialists are trained, recruited, and retained outside the capital. Any lasting solution will likely require addressing those underlying issues, including making posts in the interior more attractive to qualified doctors.
For patients in the interior, the ongoing regionalization of oncology services, including the new care point in Bugaba, Chiriquí, offers a practical improvement by cutting travel times for treatment. Whether the foreign hiring initiative moves forward, and how quickly vacancies in cardiology, anesthesiology, and oncology can be filled, will be key developments to watch in the coming months.
This story was originally reported by Newsroom Panama.