BLANTYRE, 7 October: For Malawian nurse Hilda Maganga, the financial pull of a spell on a ward in Britain is close to overwhelming her desire to tend to patients in her AIDS-stricken and impoverished homeland.
– I would like to do a two-year stint in the UK, make my money and come back to retire for good, says the 54-year-old as she contemplates joining the brain drain of Malawian health professionals.
Official figures show around 120 registered nurses have migrated to Britain and the US alone every year in the last decade with the health ministry unable to even begin to match the wages on offer abroad.
With some 14 percent of the countrys 12 million population infected with HIV, the demands on the health service are as great as at any stage in the former British colonys history since independence in 1964.
While the World Health Organisation recommends health services should employ a minimum of 100 nurses and 20 doctors per 100.000 people, Malawi currently has only 56,4 nurses and two doctors for every 100.000 potential patients.
The figure is in sharp contrast not just to the West but to other countries in the region as well. Wealthier South Africa, for example, has 393 nurses and 74,3 doctors for every 100.000 people.
Dorothy Ngoma, executive director of National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi, said there was no hiding from the impact of the shortages.
– The situation is very bad, it is a crisis. The shortage of nurses in particular is very acute with one nurse handling over 100 very sick patients in most hospital wards, she said.
– We have only 3.000 nurses on register for a population of 12 million … It is a heavy burden on them when they have to deal with various infectious diseases like HIV and AIDS, tuberculosisis and malaria, added she.
Officials say half of 70 doctors sent abroad for specialist training have not returned home after completing their studies in the last five years, often lured by better salaries.
The vacancy rate for nurses in rural areas – where the majority of people live – is 60 percent, according to a 2006 survey by the ministry of health.
Kilde: The Push Journal
