More money to stop brain drain?
2003-01-20 20:25
Pietermaritzburg - Government may consider paying doctors and nurses better salaries in an
effort to reverse the brain drain in the health sector, Public Service
and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moloketi said on Monday.
Fraser-Moloketi's statements follow her recent instruction to the
KwaZulu-Natal health department to rescind salary increases awarded
unilaterally in early 2001 to more than 49 000 health employees. The
increases were backdated to July 1999, but have yet to take effect.
Fraser-Moloketi said as the KwaZulu-Natal health department had not correctly followed
public service policies and legislative frameworks in implementing the merit
increases, the decision would set a dangerous precedent with employees in
other government departments demanding that their salary increases be dealt
with in similar manner.
Fraser-Moloketi told delegates at the opening of a three-day
Commonwealth workshop in Sandton on Monday that government was developing
strategies for attracting and retaining health professionals in the
developing world.
The workshop, co-sponsored by the Commonwealth, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and the Department of Health, brought together, for the
first time, senior representatives from 11 African countries.
Fraser-Moloketi said while developing countries could not hope to compete
with developed countries in terms of salaries, there were other ways Africa
could retain its professionals.
These included offering them non-financial incentives such as enriching
their work environments and making sure health posts, especially in the
rural areas, accommodated the needs of the families of health workers.
South Africa, however, was looking at more direct means of keeping its
doctors and nurses.
"We also don't expect our economies to compete with the pound and dollar,
but we will be looking at paying professionals a better salary. Now it may
be easier for some countries (in Africa) to deal with this than others,"
Fraser-Moloketi said.
Health professionals leave to gain experience
Professor William Pick, who addressed the conference in his capacity as head
of the Medical Research Council, said many health professionals left the
developing world not for financial reasons but to gain experience.
He said this was found at a recent study of health professionals in six
African countries, which was commissioned by WHO and whose results were to
be released in about three to four weeks time.
Pick said the study - carried out in Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda,
South Africa and Zimbabwe - was the first comprehensive attempt to quantify
the migration patterns of African professionals.
He said that because the reasons for migration varied so greatly from
country to country, researchers and policy makers needed to look into
implementing country specific interventions to combat migration.
With regards to the phenomenon of intra-African migration, Pick said
although there was a trend for professionals from the poorer north to
emigrate to the more affluent south, the effect was negligible.
SA won't poach professionals
Fraser-Moloketi, for her part, said intra-African migration needed to be
carefully considered and that South Africa would not be complicit in the
practice of poaching - privately recruiting professionals from other
countries.
She said it was currently government policy to recruit only in consultation
with other governments and only in countries such as Cuba, which has an
excess of health professionals and is willing and able to spare some of
them.
"We need to look for mechanisms whereby developing countries in Africa can
share the resources of other developing countries. We see this as a
commitment to our continent in the spirit of Nepad and the African
Renaissance," Fraser-Moloketi said.
scarce skills policy
programme
She said government was also trying to finalise a scarce skills policy
programme because studies had confirmed that public services were most
vulnerable at the level of skilled workers.
"In recent discussions we've looked at engaging labour in confronting this
(public service vulnerability) problem. This engagement is going to be
fundamental. We need to reverse the situation," Fraser-Moloketi said.
She said the problem of migration was so serious that at the African
National Congress national conference last year, one of the ministers pushed
for a campaign that would tackle what was described as a new form of
"slavery" - the movement of workers to the developed world.
When professionals move to the developed world, they are often denied key
benefits such as pension schemes and medical aid - a problem
Fraser-Moloketi said needed to be urgently addressed. - African Eye News
Service