Zimbabwe's Medical Brain Drain: Impact Assessment on Health Service Delivery and Examination of Policy Responses: A Literature Review

Abstract

The migration of health professionals to greener pastures negatively impacts on the healthservice delivery of the source countries. The trend is that doctors and nurses migrate fromrural areas to urban areas or from developing countries to developed countries in search ofbetter economic welfare and working conditions. In search of the same conditions, healthprofessionals also migrate from the public sector to the private sector. The causes for thismigration, which are largely viewed to be of economic nature, constitute the ‘push’ and‘pull’ factors. It is these factors that policy-makers should carefully study in order to arrestthe medical brain drain. Zimbabwe has not been spared of this phenomenon. In theprocess, the poor, and especially in rural areas, have been the worst victims. ZimbabweanGovernment policies, though well-intended, have not been adequate enough to arrest thesituation. This paper argues that an integrated policy approach is best positioned toaddress the brain drain problem, which has negatively impacted on the health servicedelivery system. The integrated policy approach takes cognizance of the various factorsthat constitute the complex nature of the brain drain. Such factors include global, regional,national, international market labour, development theory and practice, and human rightsand justice issues, which, unfortunately, are not usually given much consideration duringthe policy formulation process.