Outside of Nuuk, only seven of 33 doctors are permanent employees. The rest are temporary staff, according to new figures in the Health Council’s annual report.
Outside of Nuuk, patients are primarily treated by doctors on short-term assignments. This is evident from the Health Council’s 2026 annual report, which includes a data extract from the health care system’s central HR department.
The report was compiled on July 9, 2026. It shows that there were 33 doctors employed in the regions outside Nuuk, and that only seven of them were permanent employees. The remaining 26 were temporary employees.
The situation varies from region to region. In Kujataa, there were four doctors, all of whom were temporary. In Avannaa, one out of ten doctors was a permanent employee, and in Disko, one out of nine doctors was a permanent employee. Qeqqa fared best, with four permanent employees out of eight.
In Nuuk, the situation is different. Here, 68 out of 90 doctors were permanent employees. Nationwide, 60 percent of doctors were permanent employees, but that figure is largely driven by the capital.
Half Do Not Have a Specialist License
The Health Council also looked up all doctors in the License Registry and excluded those permanent employees who were on vacation. The results show that approximately half of the doctors who were actually at work in week 29 were junior doctors without a specialist license.
The Council itself notes that the figures are affected by the summer vacation. Two previous reports from the winter season showed a somewhat different distribution. At the same time, the figures include only employees covered by Greenlandic collective bargaining agreements, so doctors from staffing agencies are not included.
A two-and-a-half-month stay
The report also shows how short-term temporary positions are. During the 2021–2025 period, temporary appointments for specialists and senior physicians lasted an average of 2.5 months. However, many return, on average 2.1 times per person during that period.
– “The Greenlandic healthcare system will not be resilient as long as a large proportion of its staff consists of short-term employees recruited from outside the country,” writes the Health Council.
At the same time, the Council emphasizes that permanent employees are essential for temporary workers to be able to do their jobs at all. According to the Council, their contributions are often overlooked in the debate on recruitment.
