BBC World News Film on Health Worker Migration
As part of their "Kill or Cure" series, the BBC World News has a new documentary on health workers from developing countries -- both those who have left and those who have stayed behind.
The stories of Dr. Brian Kubwalo and nurse Yankho Yakobe, among others, clearly illustrate some of the challenges countries have in training and retaining health workers. Dr. Kubwalo is in his last year of specialty ob-gyn training in the UK, and needs to decide whether he wants to return to his native country of Malawi. Also from Malawi, Nurse Yakobe still lives there, and struggles with a heavy workload and poor pay:
"Sometimes I think, this is just cheap labor. Because what I'm doing there is not what I'm being paid for. I do a great job, a big job, but when it comes to what you get at the end of the month, it's just very hard to get through."
The film suggests that health workers should be seen as part of the global economy, and that "destination" or recruiting countries are responsible for migration and shortages just as much as "source" countries. The goal should be to reduce the "push" factors that make workers want to leave (better pay, better career opportunities), and also reduce western countries' own health workforce training underinvestment so there isn't a need to recruit from developing countries.
There are two versions of the film, a short one (7 minutes, above) and a long one (22 minutes, find it here).
In related news, the WHO's Global Health Workforce Alliance is working on a Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (latest draft here), which the WHO Executive Board reviewed this week at their meeting in Geneva. The Executive Board sets the agenda for the World Health Assembly in May 2010, where the Code of Practice will hopefully be adopted.
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