Chris Blattman

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Can we stem the African brain drain in health care?

Maybe, but we shouldn’t, says my colleague Michael Clemens in the CGD blog. Too bad the dozen of news agencies that reported on his research this week didn’t even bother to read the article.

This week I watched with a queasy stomach as my own research was widely reported in support of a belief that is the exact opposite of my findings. Citing a new journal article of mine, yesterday the BBC trumpeted that Africa is “being drained of doctors”, and a separate story on BBC’s French-language service implied that health professional emigration is directly responsible for deaths of Africans. (Radio France did a better job.)

All that my study says is that roughly 30% of sub-Saharan African-born doctors work outside Africa. For registered nurses it’s closer to 15%.

I can understand why people might make the huge jump from these numbers to believing that there are deleterious staffing and health consequences for Africa. But don’t do it. Let us do here what the reporters didn’t have the time or interest to do: think clearly and carefully about the links between these numbers and the consequences for Africans.

First and most clearly, a Kenyan nurse working in London is an African who is pursuing a professional opportunity unavailable to her at home, thereby raising her salary by five or ten times. That is a good thing all by itself; African health workers are not “human resources” that can be “exported”, they are human beings with families who choose to pursue dreams and aspirations that those of us already living in rich countries take for granted.

Read the rest here. It’s worth it.

One Response

  1. Like Dani Rodrik says, it may be good for skilled individuals to migrate to other countries. But if their education was supported by their poor nation with the goal of creating better health service for that nation, then I believe that these skilled individuals owe something to their nation. Poor nations should not be subsidizing rich nations’ health services.
    I don’t advocate sending foreign doctors home by force. Poor nations should make a contract with the people they train and other nations should help enforce these contracts.

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