South Africa and Britain reach agreement to curb poaching of healthcare staff
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《英国医生杂志》
The UK and South African governments have agreed to slow down the migration of South African doctors and other healthcare professionals to the United Kingdom. The move is part of UK proposals to strengthen the code of practice on international recruitment and to prevent agencies stripping 150 developing countries, including South Africa, of their doctors and nurses.
The proposals include offering private sector employers that sign up to the code access to international recruitment programmes in a bid to slow "back-door" recruitment into the NHS and closing a loophole that permits the recruitment of locum and temporary staff from developing countries. The code will also be extended to other areas of the NHS, not just agencies supplying overseas staff.
The public health service in South Africa has been hit hard by acute shortages of doctors, despite remedial measures by the government. Doctors have been brought in from Cuba under an agreement between the two countries; and over the past five years graduating doctors have been compelled to do community service at public sector hospitals across the country. In 2003 more than 1100 doctors were in community service.
But new research by the independent Health Systems Trust shows that almost a third of health professional posts in the public sector in South Africa are unfilled. And over the years the numbers of doctors serving 100 000 people in public health facilities have dropped sharply.
A study in the South African Health Review, published last month, states that 6% of the total healthcare workforce in the United Kingdom is from South Africa. About 600 South African doctors are registered to practise in New Zealand, and 10% of Canada's hospital doctors are South African.
The seepage overseas of doctors from South Africa is not a recent phenomenon but has been periodically strengthened, such as when doctors left in droves to avoid having to do military service in the defence of apartheid during the 1980s. Money is a factor now in the public sector, and a recent parliamentary report stated that doctors and nurses in the public health service have been moonlighting at more lucrative venues locally. The AIDS epidemic has also taken its toll on the morale of healthcare staff in public hospitals.
South Africa's health minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said that the proposals were based on ethical principles. A memorandum of understanding between the two countries would encourage the creation of education and practice opportunities for South African healthcare professionals to work for specified periods in the NHS and transfer their skills back home, she added.(Pat Sidley)
The proposals include offering private sector employers that sign up to the code access to international recruitment programmes in a bid to slow "back-door" recruitment into the NHS and closing a loophole that permits the recruitment of locum and temporary staff from developing countries. The code will also be extended to other areas of the NHS, not just agencies supplying overseas staff.
The public health service in South Africa has been hit hard by acute shortages of doctors, despite remedial measures by the government. Doctors have been brought in from Cuba under an agreement between the two countries; and over the past five years graduating doctors have been compelled to do community service at public sector hospitals across the country. In 2003 more than 1100 doctors were in community service.
But new research by the independent Health Systems Trust shows that almost a third of health professional posts in the public sector in South Africa are unfilled. And over the years the numbers of doctors serving 100 000 people in public health facilities have dropped sharply.
A study in the South African Health Review, published last month, states that 6% of the total healthcare workforce in the United Kingdom is from South Africa. About 600 South African doctors are registered to practise in New Zealand, and 10% of Canada's hospital doctors are South African.
The seepage overseas of doctors from South Africa is not a recent phenomenon but has been periodically strengthened, such as when doctors left in droves to avoid having to do military service in the defence of apartheid during the 1980s. Money is a factor now in the public sector, and a recent parliamentary report stated that doctors and nurses in the public health service have been moonlighting at more lucrative venues locally. The AIDS epidemic has also taken its toll on the morale of healthcare staff in public hospitals.
South Africa's health minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said that the proposals were based on ethical principles. A memorandum of understanding between the two countries would encourage the creation of education and practice opportunities for South African healthcare professionals to work for specified periods in the NHS and transfer their skills back home, she added.(Pat Sidley)