GLOBAL: Africa the loser in medical brain drain

Sub-Saharan African countries that train, and invest in, their doctors end up losing billions of dollars as the clinicians leave to work in developed nations, new research has found, reports IT-Online. South Africa and Zimbabwe have the greatest economic losses in doctors due to emigration, while Australia, Canada, the UK and the US benefit most from the recruitment of physicians educated in other countries.

The study, "The Financial Cost of Doctors Emigrating from Sub-Saharan Africa: Human capital analysis", by the University of Ottawa, was published on the website of the British Medical Journal. "These findings are concerning," said principal investigator Edward Mills, professor in the interdisciplinary school of health sciences at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Global Health.

"Wealthy countries are trying to strengthen the health systems of Africa and are providing essential medicines, but they are benefitting from Africa's financial loss in training health workers that emigrate to the wealthier settings."

The authors are now calling for destination countries to invest in training and health systems in the source countries.
Full report on the IT-Online site