12551. South Africa's Medical Brain Drain: Myths, Facts and What (not) to do
- Author:
- Jon Mortensen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- A global shortage of health professionals makes it relatively easy for doctors and nurses from poor countries to emigrate to rich countries. This has raised fears of a medical brain drain from poor to rich countries and has been the subject of much – impassioned – debate. This paper questions the underlying rational behind South Africa's current policies toward the medical brain drain. In doing so, it also challenges the dominating view on the medical brain drain: that out-migration of health workers from developing countries has damaging consequences and curbing that migration is pivotal in safeguarding developing countries' health systems. A view which is rooted in a perhaps intuitively convincing assumption that out-migration and low levels of health workers are tightly correlated – that outward migration causes low levels of health workers in South Africa and elsewhere.
- Topic:
- Health and Migration
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa