Richer countries must not plunder health resources of poor countries: Lancet

A Lancet editorial has urged delegates at the first-ever Global Forum on Human Resources for Health convened by the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) in Kampala, Uganda, to seek ambitious goals.
The issue has taken a close look at health inequities between rich and poor countries.

The editorial discusses the “haemorrhage of health professionals from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia”.

Africa carries 25 per cent of the world’s disease burden yet has only 3 per cent of the world’s health workers and 1 per cent of the world’s economic resources.

And:

…Issues such as poor working conditions… a lack of training, and inadequate equipment and medicines all have a contributory role. So does the active recruitment of health workers from resource-poor countries where, despite international ethical codes, many rich nations benefit to the detriment of poorer countries in order to ensure that there are enough health workers to prop up their own health systems. For example, Ghana has lost £35 million of its training investment in health professionals to the UK, saving the UK £65 million in its own training costs between 1998 and 2002.