In Africa, and with Latin America and Asia facing unrelenting health emergencies, the number of health worker deaths from Covid-19 in May was at least 115,000, according to the World Health Organization. The true figure is likely to be far higher.
In richer countries, the share of foreign-trained or foreign-born doctors and nurses has been rising for two decades. But the pandemic’s double blows of death and migration are leaving behind knowledge gaps in already fragile health systems, where poor pay and conditions are driving staff to leave. The global south has long supplied many of the human resources for health systems in the northern hemisphere. And as the UK, the US and Europe have struggled under the weight of their respective pandemics, demand for imported medical expertise has intensified.
Across the world’s wealthiest countries, nearly 25% of doctors and 16% of nurses were born abroad, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Nations from where staff were being enticed “were already facing severe shortages of skilled health workers before the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The UK launched its own incentive – a fast-track Health and Care Visa in 2020 to attract more health workers from developing countries – even as the government drastically reduced its foreign aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income, against OECD advice and putting global health systems at risk.
Johan Fagan, an ear, nose and throat disease specialist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said policies such as the UK’s fast-track visa would spur further migration.
“These countries aren’t training enough of their own healthcare professionals and are exploiting the workforce in developing countries,”
The Philippines is the largest contributor of nurses to wealthy countries. India provides the highest number of doctors and the second-highest number of migrant nurses.
The Filipino Nurses Association UK has raised concerns about the disproportionately high rate of deaths among NHS and social care staff from the Philippines, saying that the nationality had the highest mortality of all ethnicities, at about 20%. The group set up a special helpline for Filipino health workers and their families as a result. In the US, more than 30% of nurses who have died of Covid were Filipino, though they make up just 4% of the country’s registered nurses.
In Zimbabwe, a country with one of the highest doctor emigration rates, Dr Charles Moyo said Africa would face a healthcare crisis if the tide of health worker losses was not stemmed.
“The healthcare system is already strained by limited resources and by Covid. If more manpower is lost, the entire healthcare system could collapse,” he said.
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