[afro-nets] RFI: salaries and pre-service training costs

[Eric Friedman <efriedman@phrusa.org>]

RFI: salaries and pre-service training costs
--------------------------------------------

Dear All,

As you may know, the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI), a collec-
tion of more than 100 global health experts, has estimated that
Africa needs about 1 million more doctors, nurses, and midwives
(along with more pharmacists, community health workers, and
other cadres) to achieve the Millennium Development Goals
(http://www.globalhealthtrust.org/). As part of a nascent cam-
paign to enable the countries of Africa to recruit and retain
these million additional health care workers, Physicians for Hu-
man Rights is working to develop an estimate of what it would
cost to train and employ 1 million more doctors, nurses, and
midwives. The estimate will focus on salary and pre-service
training costs, and include a very rough estimate of supervi-
sion, human resource management and planning, in-service train-
ing, and similar investments.

This estimate will not include at least one key element in a
strategy to recruit and retain vast numbers of new health work-
ers, namely ensuring that the health workers have the medicine,
supplies, equipment, and facilities to do their jobs. (It is be-
yond our capacity to make such a calculation.) We will make
clear, however, that these are absolutely necessary investments
as well.

For this costing estimate, we need data from a number of African
countries across the GNP/capita spectrum. The focus of our sur-
vey will be on, at the least, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Nige-
ria, Tanzania, Malawi, and Ethiopia. We will also include one or
several of the following countries: Botswana, Namibia, Swazi-
land, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Zambia, and Ghana. We would, how-
ever, welcome any of the information that we request below for
any country in sub-Saharan Africa, including those not on the
above list.

We are looking for several pieces of information:

1. Current salary package (including housing allowances and any
other benefits) of doctors and nurses, and if applicable, medi-
cal officers or their equivalent. We realize that wages vary by
seniority and training, so we would be grateful if you could ei-
ther provide a range of wages or the average wage. Please spe-
cific whether your information is based on a monthly or annual
salary package.

2. An estimate of what a fair living wage (salary package) would
be for doctors and nurses that would be necessary - along with
other interventions, such as better working conditions, better
supervision, and better human resource management - to retain
most doctors and nurses, to prevent them from going overseas and
to keep them in the public sector (or not-for-profit private
sector).

3. An estimate of what extra level of incentives, beyond either
the current salary package and/or a fair and reasonable salary
package, would be necessary to encourage significant numbers of
doctors and nurses to locate to rural or other under-served ar-
eas.

4. Pre-service training costs of doctors and nurses and, if ap-
plicable, medical officers or their equivalent.


Thank you so much. We are looking to hear from multiple people
per country, so we look forward to your response! Please contact
me with any information (even if you only have thoughts / infor-
mation on part of one question), questions, or comments about
this. If you do not have this information but know someone who
could help with this information for one (or more) of the coun-
tries, please do pass along that person's contact information.

Many thanks.
Peace,

Eric A. Friedman
Physicians for Human Rights
1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 1001
Washington, DC 20005 USA
Tel: +1-202-728-5335 ext. 303
Fax: +1-202-728-3053
mailto:efriedman@phrusa.org