WHO pledges to help Zimbabwe beat health brain drain

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is exploring a two-pronged intervention strategy aimed at assisting Zimbabwe beat a biting health sector brain drain following high-level representations from Government, the United Nations' health promotion agency has said.

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus revealed the plan after meeting Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Constantino Chiwenga on the sidelines of the 5th edition of the Global Ministerial Summit held here last week.

Zimbabwe, despite training more than enough for its hospitals, has been paying a heavy price for the high-quality health sector professionals it produces as high-income nations continue to lure these professionals to the detriment of the local health sector.

Independent observers have pointed to this as the single biggest threat to Zimbabwe achieving universal health coverage through which President Mnangagwa's Government is configuring the health sector to guarantee sufficient health access and of high quality for all consistent with the demands of an upper middle-income economy.

Government has stated that it has no qualms with its professionals going to work in other jurisdictions but wants this to be institutionalised and coordinated on a government-to-government level.

It is against this background that Government has now taken the matter up with the United Nations health promotion agency which is now working on a model to ensure that the "poaching" countries are ethical in their recruitment of local professionals so that the supplier does not suffer adverse effects.

There are also plans to upscale training so that the gap between demand and supply can be bridged.

"One of the problems we discussed is workforce. For the health system to be strong you need to have workforce in terms of number and in terms of quality but Zimbabwe is worried that many high income countries are taking its doctors and nurses and the country is now facing shortages locally," said Dr Ghebreyesus after his meeting with VP Chiwenga.

"He (VP Chiwenga) asked if WHO could really help to address this issue. Of course, there are two things we can do. One there is a code of conduct so those countries poaching health workers from low income countries should follow the code of conduct.

"The second strategic solution is to train more since the problem is supply and demand mismatch. There are models now we have been considering in WHO that can help, that is increasing the enrolment significantly so that it can address the shortages that we are facing, so it is a combination of short and long term."

The WHO director-general also heaped praise on Zimbabwe's recently launched Health Resilient Fund (HRF).

The HRF is premised on accelerating health delivery through harnessing local resources as well as accepting private player partnerships as informed by President Mnangagwa's "Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo" (a country is developed by its citizens) approach.

"I do know the Vice President recently launched the resilient health system funding which is very important as part of the universal health coverage that they plan to achieve and WHO is committed to supporting it.

"We discussed putting patient safety first. Actually when we talk about health system strengthening or resilient health system, then patient safety should be at the centre which he (VP Chiwenga) agrees with," said Dr Ghebreyesus.