Ghana 'robbed' of medics by UK

By Lucy Ash
BBC Five Live Report

Ghana's health service is understaffed

Britain has a newly expanded health service but patients from the world's poorest continent are paying the price.

Korle Bu is Ghana's biggest hospital on the outskirts of the capital Accra.

As Nurse Sylvia Osei walks past the drab concrete walls of the children's emergency unit, she hears some unwelcome news.

It is new form of colonisation. Sylvia Osei, Ghanaian nurse

Two six year old boys have just died - one had malaria, the other stopped breathing, it is not clear why.

"Those deaths were probably preventable," she says. "We could have saved them if only we had more staff."

Upstairs in the maternity department, mothers often have to queue for emergency caesareans.

One of the operating theatres here has been closed for two years because of a shortage of anaesthetists and nurses.

Korle Bu's neonatal intensive care unit has plenty of drugs and equipment - it was once the pride of West Africa - but it too is desperately short staffed.

Four exhausted looking nurses have to care for 86 seriously ill babies.

And many of the babies are only in incubators now because of the shortage of midwives around the country.

Thousands of mothers go into labour without any supervision and some of their babies then suffer from asphyxia.

Lack of oxygen during birth can lead to irreversible brain damage.

'Colonisation'

Ghana has lost a frightening 60% of its nurses.

Two thirds of young doctors have left the country within three years of graduation. Many have left for better paid jobs in the UK.

Until independence in 1957, Ghana was Britain's most prosperous African colony.

It used to send its mother country cocoa, gold, diamonds, and timber. Now it sends us its medical staff.

The G8 gives with one hand but it takes with the other Sylvia Osei

"Its very unfair of Britain to poach our nurses", says Sylvia. "I think it is new form of colonisation.

"Tony Blair says Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world and that his government wants to help us but then why does the UK rob us of our medical staff?"

Sylvia is used to seeing her colleagues leave without even saying goodbye.

"When people leave suddenly, we say they've ruptured", she explains.

"And the next time you hear from them they're calling you from another country thousands of miles away."

Code 'makes no difference'

It is a vicious circle. The more of her colleagues leave Ghana, the worse it is for those left behind.

"Their workload falls on us and we suffer from the burn-out syndrome. It is so stressful a lot of us just have to pray to God for survival."

As long as we cynically under-produce in this country, the world's poorest countries will pay the price James Johnson, British Medical Association chairman

When the British government was planning to expand its health system in the late 90s it urged hospitals not to plunder the developing world.

In 2001 it drew up a code of practice which discouraged active recruitment from the world's poorest countries.

But for many, Britain remains an attractive destination. Salaries are low in Ghana - about £45 a month for a junior nurse, £75 pounds for a sister.

The code of practice "hasn't made any difference" according to Ken Sagoe, the head of human resources at the Ghana Health Service.

Since it was introduced, he points out, the number of Ghanaian-trained doctors working in Britain has actually doubled.

Although staff are no longer recruited openly, they are snapped up by agencies who send them to work in private sector clinics and nursing homes before they enter the UK's NHS, through the back door.

Home training

The UK's Department for International Development has given £560m in aid to help support Africa's health care systems and train new medical staff in the last five years.

Tony Blair has set up an Africa Commission to try and lift the continent out of poverty.

But Africa is still subsidising the NHS.

If the doctors and nurses from Sub-Saharan Africa registered to work here over the last five years had actually been trained in the UK it would have cost £1.95 billion - almost four times as much as we've given in aid.

Some believe the code of practice is irrelevant because, whatever the rules, higher salaries and better conditions in the UK will always draw staff away from the developing world.

"The only answer is to train more of our own doctors and nurses", says James Johnson of the British Medical Association.

"We are training more now but it is late in the day and we started from a very low base.

"As long as we cynically under-produce in this country, the world's poorest countries will pay the price."

Sylvia agrees with this analysis. As the world's leading economies prepare to discuss aid to Africa in Edinburgh next week she says: "The G8 gives with one hand but it takes with the other - that how we see it."

Lucy Ash's report, Out of Africa: Into the NHS can be heard on Five Live on Sunday 3 July at 11.00 BST and 19.30BST and after that at the Five Live Report website.