Foreign Healthcare Professionals in Germany: A Questionnaire Survey Evaluating Discrimination Experiences and Equal Treatment at Two Large University Hospitals

OBJECTIVE: To identify facilitators and barriers and derive concrete measures towards better workplace integration of migrants working in the German healthcare sector.

DESIGN: Two-centre cross-sectional quantitative online survey of experiences of discrimination among healthcare professionals with a migration history in two large German university hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS: 251 participants fully completed the questionnaires.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Experiences of discrimination and perception of inequality.

RESULTS: Fifty-five percent of migrant health workers had had at least some command of German before arriving in Germany. Members of all professional groups surveyed expressed experiences of discrimination related to language, nationality, race/ethnicity, and sex/gender. The proportions of staff with experiences of discrimination by peers differed significantly among occupational roles, with nurses and technologists having the most experiences of discrimination. The perception of inequality was reported more frequently than experiences of discrimination and had a negative impact on workplace satisfaction. Specifically, the compulsion to compete was a frequent feeling stated by participants.

CONCLUSION: The mechanisms of discrimination and structural inequality revealed by our survey could inform specific measures, for example at the management level, to increase workplace satisfaction and attract migrant health workers in the long term.