The brain drain in sub-Saharan Africa is costing the nations up to $2 billion per year and is robbing the region of some of its most valuable resources.
According to a new study from Canadian scientists, many of the developing nations in Africa are actually losing money by training its citizens to be doctors, while countries such as Australia, Canada, the UK and the U.S. benefit the most from recruiting physicians educated in those areas.
Zimbabwe and South Africa have the worst economic losses, according to a report from the Telegraph, and overall the region lost about $2 billion as doctors left to work in more developed countries with better opportunities for a higher salary. Conversely, the UK brings in about $2.7 billion per year and the U.S. $846 million by recruiting doctors from areas where it is much less expensive to train them.
It shows that some of the country's noble efforts to provide better facilities for training physicians haven't paid off. In Uganda it costs just $21,000 to train a doctor, but then are hired in countries who gain since they don't need to invest anything else in their training. In some cases, like the UK, this could lead to an oversaturation of physicians in developed areas, and shortages in the regions that truly need them.
With serious health issues spreading across sub-Saharan Africa, such as the AIDS crisis, TB, malaria and a food shortage, the region is especially in need of doctors. The World Health Organization highlighted the problem in 2010, but with the new report, many physicians are calling on the WHO to be stricter in their hiring requirements to ensure the region has a reliable medical force in the future.
