Medical crisis

[grassfarmer]

The British press has been carrying reports this week that when the UK assumes chair of the G8 group this summer they will push for less
"poaching" of medical staff from Sub- Saharan Africa. Apparently in 2003 the UK issued work permits for 5880 South African medical professionals. The problem is this brain drain leaves the countries of the world suffering huge AIDS epidemics short of medical staff.
They argue that rich western countries have a moral obligation to train their own medical people rather than poach them from where they are more needed.
Canada I guess is equally guilty of this practice as I know of 3 South African doctors in this area since I moved here. Is this something Canadians feel we should be addressing?
There is an article at:
"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4582283.stm"

[cakadu]

Grassfarmer I read a while back where doctors from other countries were getting recruited for rural areas here in Canada because they are having such a hard time getting rural areas properly staffed. Many of the doctors trained here apparently do not wish to go out to more "remote" areas and that leaves them understaffed.

Another fly in the ointment is that they keep closing rural facilities so that doesn't leave doctors any where to go either.

I wonder if it might be possible to bring some of these more knowledgable doctors here to work at a chair position in various hospitals and do a train the trainer kind of scenario so that we aren't pulling much needed resources from areas that can scarcely afford to loose them.

[cakadu]

grassfarmer, in my community we have at least 60% South African doctors. The 'old guard' of doctors in this community have given up their hospital privileges, which means that if one is in a city hospital for surgery or illness, they cannot be transferred to the local hospital unless they have a family doctor with hospital privileges.
In the clinic where I have gone for years, one doctor after another has retired, leaving only one doctor who is new to the community and does not have hospital privileges.

I do agree that we need to do more to not only train our doctors but retain them in our health care system once we have them trained.
Same goes for nurses. A friends daughter is taking her BSc in nursing in Texas on a scholarship and has been offered employment in seven hospitals around the US, when she graduates.

Physician recruitment is extremely difficult in rural areas, as is the recruitment of dentists etc.

Specialists come out to our local hospital and do knee surgeries, gall bladder surgeries etc., but the wait time is twice as long as when patients choose to have the same surgery by the same surgeon in a hospital two hours drive away !!!! Our entire health care system is in crisis, all the more reason for folks to go the holistic route and live a healthier lifestyle where possible.

[cowman]

The reason so many South African doctors are showing up in Canada has more to do with the political situation in South Africa than anything? The SA doctors in my local area are all white?
About a year ago I had to go get sewed up and the doctor was a white South African. He said, in South Africa, if you are white you are a second class citizen and the economy is basically starting to crumble due to poor government. He left with the shirt on his back. The government confiscated all his property
Back in the sixties there was an influx of British/Irish doctors to our country. They came here because they got sick of paying most of their money to the government? People are always going to do what is best for theirselves? If they find it intolerable to live somewhere they will seek a better situation.