The Hindu : International : British system "stripping sub-Sahara of health staff"

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Saturday, May 28, 2005

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British system "stripping sub-Sahara of health staff"

Sarah Boseley

LONDON: The U.K. is playing a pivotal role in stripping English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa of its doctors and nurses, says a report published on Friday.

The U.K. Department of Health forbids the U.K.'s state-funded National Health Service (NHS) from recruiting from countries struggling to treat sicker populations. The code of practice does not cover Britain's private hospitals and agencies, although U.K. Health Minister John Hutton said last August it would be tightened.

Increasing demand

But, John Eastwood, from St George's hospital school of medicine in Tooting, south London, and colleagues say in a report in the Lancet: ``It is difficult to believe that strengthening the code on its own will overcome the demand. It is this demand that appears to be the principal cause of the drain.''

Overseas staff make up a large proportion of the medical workforce in Britain — 31 per cent of practising doctors and 13 per cent of nurses were born outside the U.K., they say. Nearly half of the recent 16,000 expansion of the NHS workforce came from outside the U.K. and Europe. Although some other countries lack doctors, ``the problem is especially severe in sub-Saharan Africa'', they write. An estimated 60 per cent of doctors who in the 1980s trained in Ghana — which has only nine doctors per 100,000 population and is being overwhelmed by the HIV/Aids epidemic — have left.

In 2003, say the authors, work permits were approved for 5,880 personnel from South Africa, 2,825 from Zimbabwe, 1,510 from Nigeria and 850 from Ghana — even though they are all on the list the NHS is not allowed to recruit from. —

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