Which Countries?

• Malawi was only able to fill 28% of its nursing positions in 2003
• South Africa loses almost half of it's qualified doctors to Canada, Britain and Australia - it recruits from poorer countries - Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe - which now account for 80% of South Africa's rural doctors
• Ghana has lost 50% of it's professional nurses to Canada, Britain and Australia
• There are more doctors working outside Ghana than in the country
• Zambia's public sector retained only fifty out of six hundred physicians trained in medical school from 1978-1999

Why?

• The United States has 100,000 vacant nursing posts. By 2010 one million more nurses will be needed to meet the needs of an aging population
• Canada predicts a shortfall of 78,000 nurses by 2011 and Australia 40,000 by 2010
• In Britain 43% of nurses registering were foreign trained in 2003 (compared with 10% in 1993)
• A nurse in Uganda would earn $38 a month and a doctor $67; in the United States the equivalent wage package for a nurse would be $3,056 and for a doctor $10,554; in Australia the corresponding figures would be $2,832 and $5,438.