Itai Magodoro
11 October 2008
Africa's health professionals are working everywhere and anywhere but Africa.
For every nurse still tinkering at their calling on the continent, many more have left the motherland for other shores a long way across the seas.
At the last official and published head count, Zimbabwe's five main hospitals had 36 senior doctors doing the work of 145, and 291 primary care nurses sharing amongst themselves the spoils for 2 500. That was in 2006. It has gotten worse.
But these yearnings for distant pastures, greener and more verdant, are reported among the majority of nursing students. That is according to the findings of a study published in the journal Human Resources for Health, issue number 5 of Volume 6.
The study was carried out among nursing students training in Uganda. Its aim was to assess their career plans, especially relating to intentions to stay and work at home or to ride the haemorrhagic tide of the brain drain. Its findings have the potential to subdue even the most optimistic. It is not so much about the novelty of the findings as it is about their mammoth scale. The findings and their implications may just as well be relevant to most African countries, including especially Zimbabwe.
It's almost three years since Nozizwe Moyo (not her real name) has been in Bulawayo, where she is a final year student at the Mpilo School of Nursing. The hope is that she graduates soon and gets a job. Maybe burdens at home will lighten. Lately, things have taken a turn for the worse. Meals, at best, are not regular and, at worst, of the sort that you bravely endure. The government allowance of $9 000 each month can only do so much.
Her aspirations are not out of the ordinary for one her age. There is financial independence, a decent life, eating properly and clothe oneself. Owning a house and driving a car are part of the picture and there are siblings to see through school.
The Zimbabwean nurse joining the public service today may expect to begin at the five-digit salary of Z$ 17 000 a month. That buys about three loaves of bread.
With the chronic shortages of everyday life in Zimbabwe, of everything from drips to absolutely essential drugs, much of what is satisfying is not happening. The working conditions are abysmal. Morale has plummeted through the ground and is still digging.
"I really want to help my patients," retorts Nozizwe, "but with the way things are, that's not easy. Can you tell me how I am supposed to handle so many sick people, particularly those who soil themselves, with my bare hands? And there's no soap most of the times to wash one's hands! Tell me, how do I do it?"
Today they endure an unnecessary 6km travail to Mpilo. Tomorrow they will brave the inevitable journey to very distant lands. Zimbabwe, along with the rest of Africa, will rue the loss of her children.
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