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Brain drain: Zimbabwe worst affected
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ZIMBABWE is the country hardest hit by brain drain on the continent, resulting in the loss of over 50 percent of key professionals within the country’s public health institutions.
At a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development, it was estimated that each professional leaving Africa costs the region US$184
000.
Education has been Zimbabwe’s largest investment in development and one of the country’s greatest successes, yet the gains have been eroded due to the brain drain and the Aids pandemic. |
Recent findings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show The gravity of the staff situation in Zimbabwe’s health institutions was documented in the summary of vacancy returns, compiled by the Health Service Board, which showed that more than 50 percent of key posts within the public health system were vacant by December 2005.
However, despite this major setback, the country has registered tremendous progress in the area of HIV and Aids, with the prevalence rate going down from 33 percent in 2001, 29 percent in 2002, 24,6 percent in 2004, 20,1 in 2005, to the current 18,1 percent. The outflow of professionals from poor countries to wealthier nations has become one of the difficult challenges facing many developing countries today.
WHO recommends a minimum ratio of 100 nurses for every 100 000 people, but many poor nations do not come even close.
In some poor countries the ratio is 10 nurses per every 100 000 people, compared to 2 000 per 100 000 people in wealthier nations. In Europe, the average ratio is 10 times that of Africa and South-East Asia.
Out of an establishment of 2500 primary care nurses in Zimbabwe, there were only 291 primary care nurses, leaving a vacancy of 88.4 percent in the country’s public health institutions by December last year.
There were 67 nurse tutors out of an establishment of 248. The just-released United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) State of the World Report 2006 states that nowhere is the effect of the brain drain more acutely felt than in the already fragile health systems of developing countries.
The Global Commission on International Migration reports that more Malawian doctors were currently practicing in the northern English city of Manchester than in the whole of Malawi. Only 50 of the 600 doctors trained since independence were still practising in Zambia.
While sub-Saharan Africa is currently staggering under the highest infectious disease burden in the world (25 percent), it retains only 1,3 percent of the world’s healthcare practitioners.
In 2000, twice as many nurses left Ghana as graduated. Two years later, the Ministry of Health in that country estimated a nurse vacancy rate of 57 percent. In 2003, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago reported nursing vacancies of 58 and 53 percent, respectively. In 2003, an estimated 85 percent of employed Filipino nurses were working abroad.
According to the UN population report, what looked godsend for the developed world, was, however, devastating for more impoverished countries. Global competition was driving countries to recruit more highly skilled migrant workers in order to maintain and increase their economic edge.
As a result, researchers estimate that between a third and half of the developing world’s science and technology personnel currently live in the developed world. A World Bank study concludes that for "22 of the 33 countries in which educational attainment data can be estimated, less than 10 percent of the best educated (tertiary- educated) population of labour-exporting countries had migrated".
The trend was unlikely to slow down soon, as WHO estimates that by 2008, Great Britain would require 25 000 doctors and 250 000 nurses more than it did in 1997. The US government projects that by 2020, more than one million nursing positions would need to be filled. Canada and Australia were projecting nursing deficits of 78000 and 40000, respectively, during the next four to five years. This was partially owing to demographic ageing brought on by lower fertility rates and longer life expectations in industrialised countries.
credit: Sundaymail
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