Medical Brain Drain and Healthcare Delivery in Africa: Beyond Restrictive Migration Policies

Abstract

The health of a particular population cannot be maintained or enhanced without the active participation of health care workers. This is because health care workers (doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, etc.) are critical individuals in ensuring health, as they determine the quality, equity and sustainability of health care services that can be available to a population. In this paper, I argue that Africa, in recent times, has continued to witness enormous shortages of health-care workers as a result of “medical braindrain”. I draw from Michael Blake’s liberal orthodoxy doctrine to argue that although some African countries have adopted restrictive migration policies to combat medical brain drain, yet, restrictive migration is not an effective approach because it not only limits individual’s liberty but also places the totality of health burdens onhealth workers at the neglect of other determinants of health. Hence, I argue that to successfully combat medical brain drain, African countries need to address the underlying factors that are responsible for bad health outcomes in Africa and also adopt viable health and public policy approaches that are considerate of individual liberty and at the same time sympathetic to the “plight” of developing African countries.