African countries are suffering from a shortage of medical professionals due to the "brain drain" phenomenon.
According to The Guardian, many qualified doctors from Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe have left to work in the United States, Australia, and Europe. Despite the requirements of the World Health Organization and laws mandating work in their home countries, doctors and nurses are leaving African nations en masse.
In Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe, there's a shortage of medical professionals. In Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, patients are forced to wait in queues for about three hours to see a nurse. In Nigeria, there's one medical worker for every 5,000 people, compared to 254 patients per doctor in developed countries.
Nigerians with medical education prefer not to work in their home country but rather migrate abroad to the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Middle East. The same trend applies to nurses: since 2017, 75,000 nurses have left the country.
According to African social activists, the reasons behind this "escape" of doctors are clear: they seek better working conditions, social guarantees, and decent wages. The World Health Organization warns that as a result of the "brain drain," the shortage of doctors worldwide, especially in countries with lower average incomes, will reach 10 mn people by 2030.
"Doctors and nurses are leaving for the West and the Middle East in search of a better life. Should we enact laws or improve working conditions to stop them?" rhetorically asked Shehu Sani, a Nigerian human rights advocate and former senator.
There officially exists a WHO "Red List" that includes 37 African countries, which states that economically developed nations should not hire qualified doctors from these countries. However, these prohibitions don't effectively work in practice.
For instance, just last year, around 4,000 nurses left Ghana. Meanwhile, the recruitment of medical workers from abroad, including Africa, has significantly increased in Europe. Calls to adhere to these restrictions have not yet been successful, and local laws aimed at limiting emigration have also failed to produce the desired results.
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