AFRO-NETS> Paradox of wealth transfer from poor to rich nations through manpower (2)

[Emmanuel Otolorin <eotolorin@jhpiego.net>]

Paradox of wealth transfer from poor to rich nations through manpower (2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Akin,

This is all very interesting. Perhaps, it will even be more interest-
ing to conduct a survey of these 21,000 doctors from Nigeria to de-
termine the primary reasons for leaving (e.g. educational pursuits, 
low salaries, lack of job satisfaction, family reasons, unsafe home 
environment, frustrated by frequent shortages of medical supplies, 
drugs and equipment, past military harassment of the medical profes-
sion, frustrated by poor utilities like NEPA, NITEL, poor educational 
opportunities for their children, government's persistent underfund-
ing of the health sector despite numerous painful strike actions by 
doctors and nurses, poor, autocratic and oftentimes non-transparent 
hospital management, lack of visionary leadership at all levels 
etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if lack of job satisfaction tops the 
list of reasons.

It will also be interesting to survey opinions on what it will take 
to get them to go back (establishment of national health commission, 
upward review of salaries, increased funding of health sector above 
WHO recommendations, establishment of more state of the art hospi-
tals, acceptance of returning physicians by local physicians instead 
of turf protection, establishment of functional health insurance 
schemes to ensure that patients are not denied care because they are 
poor, regulation and sanitation of private medical practice, institu-
tionalization of the concept of quality improvement, responsive hos-
pital management that solves problems, recognizes and rewards excel-
lence in service etc.). Perhaps the results of such a survey will 
find their way to visionary politicians seeking to reverse the trend. 
Hopefully, the next generation of physicians from these countries 
will be able to resist the urge to leave.

Emmanuel Otolorin
mailto:eotolorin@jhpiego.net
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org