Cabinet Secretary for Education, Dr Fred Matiang’i.
BY CORRESPONDENT.
Sub-Saharan Africa countries are losing about Sh200 billion (2 billion dollars) through migration of expert clinicians trained in Africa to Western Countries.
Cabinet Secretary for Education, Dr Fred Matiang’i said that South Africa and Zimbabwe suffer the worst economic losses due to doctors emigrating, whileas Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States benefit most from recruiting doctors trained abroad.
Speaking during the official opening of Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) symposium, a project that supports medical health training and research development in sub-Saharan Africa, the CS expressed concern that the migration of trained health workers from poor countries to richer ones worsens the problem of an already weak health systems in low-income countries trying to battle epidemics of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) and malaria.
“There is need for African countries to develop strategies that should reverse the situation”, Dr. Matiang’i said , noting that a number of African governments spend between Sh2.1 million (21,000 dollars), the figure for Uganda, and Sh5.9 Million ($59,000 dollars), in South Africa, to train a doctor, only to see them in many cases migrate to richer countries.
In Kenya, he said majority of Kenyan doctors are migrating to the US, UK and others, but more so to South Africa.
