The clinic still has a sign on the door. Inside, the examination table is covered in a sheet, the cabinets locked. The doctor left for Germany eighteen months ago, and no one has come to replace her.
Across the region, the story repeats: medical graduates trained at public expense leave for better pay in the West, and the villages they came from grow older and emptier.
The arithmetic of leaving
A young doctor in a rural post can expect a fraction of what the same job pays abroad. The decision, for many, is not really a decision at all.