Zimbabwe's Medical Brain Drain: Impact Assessment on Health Service Delivery and Examination of Policy Responses - A Literature Review

The migration of health professionals to greener pastures negatively impacts on the health service delivery of the source countries. The trend is that doctors and nurses migrate from rural areas to urban areas or from developing countries to developed countries in search of better economic welfare and working conditions. In search of the same conditions, health professionals also migrate from the public sector to the private sector. The causes for this migration, which are largely viewed to be of economic nature, constitute the 'push' and 'pull' factors. It is these factors that policy-makers should carefully study in order to arrest the medical brain drain. Zimbabwe has not been spared of this phenomenon. In the process, the poor, and especially in rural areas, have been the worst victims. Zimbabwean Government policies, though well-intended, have not been adequate enough to arrest the situation. This paper argues that an integrated policy approach is best positioned to address the brain drain problem, which has negatively impacted on the health service delivery system. The integrated policy approach takes cognizance of the various factors that constitute the complex nature of the brain drain. Such factors include global, regional, national, international market labour, development theory and practice, and human rights and justice issues, which, unfortunately, are not usually given much consideration during the policy formulation process.