Brain Drain of Doctors from the sub Saharan countries
As per the new data sub Saharan African countries lose about $2 billion in training the doctors since usually the expert doctors or the clinicians leave their home land to find work in more developed and prosperous countries. A study done by the Canadian scientists showed that South Africa and Zimbabwe are the worst affected ones. Since the doctors from there emigrate to other better countries like the Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States. These hence benefit the most from this. Also the scientists who were led by Edward Mills, chair of global health at the University of Ottawa, invited the destination countries to identify this imbalance and also to invest more in countries that lose out due to this trait.
Mills team also found that such nations invest lesser in the training of thee doctors but end up being in benefit due to these qualified immigrants. Mills report was also published in the British Medical Journal. The developing countries are paying a lot in training these men which in the end only benefit the developed nations only. According to the experts this migration or brain drain as we call it of the trained work force from poorer to the wealthier nations enhances the problem of already weak health systems of these low income countries, and which are constantly battling against the odds of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) and malaria.
The world health organization also have imbibed a code of practice on the on international recruitment of health persons that brought to the surface the problem of these brain drains and hence further invited the wealthy nations to help financially. This code is especially important for the sub Saharan Africa which faces this huge problem of lack of good doctors and has a high presence of diseases like HIV, TB and malaria. Recent UN study revealed that 68 per cent of those having the HIV are from Africa itself.
Mills’ team found out the total estimated cost spent on providing training from the primary and secondary school till the medical school to these people in the nine sub Saharan countries. The countries studied were Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These people then added all these figures to know the total amount spent to train these doctors and then compared it with the amount that the destination countries earned. These findings showed a unbelievable profit to the wealthy nations.
