[afro-nets] Ghana lost 12,365 Health Professionals 1993-2002 (12)

[Edward Mensah <dehasnem@uic.edu>]

Ghana lost 12,365 Health Professionals 1993-2002 (12)
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Dr Dovlo:

You are certainly right that this is a very complex topic, but
certainly no more complex that most of the problems addressed by
health economists in the past. Ideally, it requires a systems
approach. One will want to address the political issues as well
as social conflicts. The Bank and WHO, as well as other agencies
have done quite a lot of work which can provide the foundation
for a future research on this topic.

I will look through some of the sources you provided. They look
interesting. The issue is, given all these studies, why is the
problem getting worse by the year? Have they implemented these
studies? Do we have any studies showing the minimum package of
incentives (pay, working conditions, supplies, etc.) it will
take to retain a young graduate of University of Ibadan or Le-
gon, for example, to decide to practice at home? There ought to
be such a package, which research can identify.

How about the diaspora? Even if you cannot encourage people to
go back to Africa completely (which may not be necessary in the
short run) there ought to be a condition under which many ex-
perts spend significant time between their new adopted country
and Africa in order to assist in curtailing the brain drain
problem.

You see, if you ask the right questions, economics has way of
giving you useful solutions. If we do not work on practical so-
lutions, the health professional brain drain in Ghana will be
30,000 in a couple of years. One thing that does not work is to
rely on moral suasion or altruism. I intend to work on finding a
market solution which is affordable (else it will be purely aca-
demic).


Regards,

Edward Kwaku Mensah, PhD
Professor, Health Economics and Information Management
Director, Public Health Informatics Program
School of Public Health
Division of Health Policy and Administration
University of Illinois at Chicago
mailto:dehasnem@uic.edu