The immigration of physicians from the African continent has recently led to great concerns to health workforce planners. Many African countries are currently experiencing an increasing trend in the migration of health workers, including physicians. Given the shortage of healthcare workers in Africa, this trend will impose more burden on the countries of origin, which necessitates taking serious measures to more effectively deal with the problem.
The poor quality of healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa, which is related to many factors such as outbreaks of diseases and infections, is worsened by the immigration of medical graduates and healthcare workers. Many young African doctors often go abroad to complete their studies and they stay there, leading to extensive brain drain in different regions, including Morocco, Tunisia, Rwanda, and Senegal as some instances (The Africa Report, 2022). Hence, as the report emphasizes, their country of origin remains understaffed because this young population of medical graduates never comes back.
The mass flight of doctors and health professionals is associated with the dreadful professional and social conditions they experience, such as low salaries, lack of human, financial, and technical resources, and the prospect of an uncertain future pushing this population, particularly young doctors beyond the borders. In the case of a country such as Algeria, estimations show that around 1200 doctors and nurses have left the country after passing the relevant examinations for the recognition of qualifications and verification of knowledge in a country such as France. However, this is not limited to Algeria, and doctors and specialists from other countries such as Tunisia and Morocco are also found among immigrants (Atalayar, 2022).
Nigeria is another African country, where immigration of doctors has faced an increasing trend in recent years, while no obvious efforts have been made to manage or decrease the negative effects of this growing trend on the already weak Nigerian health system. Major factors that encourage resident doctors of this country to immigrate to developed countries can be better working and living conditions, good salary, and the opportunity for career advancement (Adebayo & Akinyemi, 2021). These conditions have led to a significant shortage of doctors in Nigeria, and according to the WHO report (2019), Nigeria has about 3.8 doctors per 10,000 population as against the recommended minimum threshold of 23 doctors per 10,000 population.
This growing trend of immigration is in conditions that the critical shortage of healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa is among the largest obstacles the public health systems face in today’s modern world. This crisis has serious impacts on nearly all facets of public health within the region, including child and adult mortality, maternal health, and treatment of diseases and infections (Haseeb, 2020). Therefore, the fragile health systems of African countries will be exposed to higher levels of risk as the a considerably high number of medical staff immigrate to work in richer developed countries. Regardless of the reasons for the migration of doctors and health professionals, the human burden of not having access to adequate health care can be a good reason to prevent or at least deal with this growing process.
According to Haseeb (2020), to overcome the crisis in the human resources for healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa, it is necessary to minimize the immigration of healthcare workers from this region. Therefore, governments need to improve the local working conditions for healthcare professionals to discourage their immigration. Accordingly, they can provide incentive programs for certain fields of medicine or additional funding for private or rural clinics. Along with limiting the loss of their existing healthcare professionals and doctors, the sub-Saharan African countries need to invest in considerable increase in their future healthcare workforce. This can be achieved by encouraging more people to enter health-related professions by targeting the field of education. Such programs along with an increase in the amount of financial assistance provided to students who enter health-related post-secondary programs can ensure access to the required healthcare staff in future. All governments, especially developing countries and regions in Africa, must keep in mind that progress is possible only with a healthy society, which is only achieved by the preservation of human capital, especially those who play the greatest role in the health of society.
References
Atalayar, (2022). www.atalayar.com/en/content/nearly-1200-doctors-and-health-professionals-leave-algeria
Adebayo, A., & Akinyemi, O. O. (2021). “What Are You Really Doing in This Country?”: Emigration Intentions of Nigerian Doctors and Their Policy Implications for Human Resource for Health Management. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 1-20.
Haseeb, S. (2020). The critical shortage of healthcare workers in sub Saharan Africa: a comprehensive review. Health Sci Med.
The Africa News, (2021). www.africanews.com/2021/04/01/lured-by-richer-gulf-countries-tunisian-doctors-ditch-jobs-at-home//
WHO. (2019). Global Health Observatory Data Repository. Retrieved from www.apps.who.int/gho/data/node.country.country-NG