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(Vancouver) Developing countries are poaching nurses from AIDS-ravaged Africa where the caregivers also counsel women who face violence from a spouse who may have infected them, the UN's special envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa

Stephen Lewis told a convention of the B.C. Nurses' Union that the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and Canada are among the countries taking nurses from a continent that desperately needs them.

"It's a very irascible and disturbing phenomenon to have western countries poaching on the few professionals that these countries have."

The intense stigma and discrimination that HIV-AIDS-infected women deal with in Africa means they are beaten up, thrown out of their homes and have their children taken away from them, said Lewis, also a senior advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.

"It's the nurses who go back to the homes when the woman is disclosing her status to her partner in order to be physically present to assuage what is often a very tense and difficult situation," he said.

"The nurses are called upon to do absolutely everything across the continent in relation to the virus and that's something that is not fully understood."

Two years ago, 57 of 100 nursing graduates in Swaziland left the country for jobs in western countries, he said.

"You can imagine what it means when a little impoverished country makes that kind of investment and then loses its professionals who it needs so intensely."

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[ 05 March 2006: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

This is the reality: there is so much to be built and developed in Africa, that it probably won't occur in most people's lifetime, even if it were to begin in earnest now, that many would rather leave and try their luck overseas, even as they themselves realise what they are doing and generally would rather stay where they grew up.

THe only solution I can see, is that we pay these professionals an effective equivalent salary for staying and working to build up the african societies; but we could never force them to do so. Hence we would be acting as their defacto public service employer; because what many african states lack is money to pay their civil servants properly.

Basically some impartial organisation, UN?, could say right, we will give x amount of supplementary dollars to anyone who stays in y region, regardless of where they are from. And this x amount of dollars would have to be enough to counter balance the effect of quality of life found overseas. THis agency would be funded by all donor agencies.

...Because their government doesn't give a shit, as a rule. Even here in the relatively blessed South Pacific, where we have our own brain drains (within the region and to the outside), the problem's obvious. Politicians are extremely concerned with their own cars and perqs, and only vaguely puzzled by the way the professionals they refuse to pay well or even promptly fuck off.

Of course it's bad for the West to recruit. But it's in the interest of the West to do so, and that includes, probably, your local hospital, especially if you don't live in a big city. I find it strange to blame governments for thinking of their own people first.

The governments to blame are the ones with a duty to look after the nurses, and the people served by the nurses (and doctors and pilots and engineers and so on). They're not helpless natives abused by Great White Hunters...they're crooked politicians, no better than crooked politicians in Toronto.

[ 05 March 2006: Message edited by: Boarsbreath ]

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
That's so mighty white of you. Instead of laying the blame for Africa's plight at the doorstep of African leadership and culture you want to prevent educated Africans from bettering their lives. When Africa achieves the characteristics of civil society then educated Africans shall return. "Preventing" foreign companies from recruiting them sounds like another hopeless regulation that can never be enforced. Easy for you to tell African professionals to work in an environment of violence and incompetence and corruption while you sit in the comfort of Canada.

The dirty remark about Africa among older aid workers is that Africa was better off under colonial administration. A generation of freedom has led to chaos and famine and genocide. Tribal rivalries, ethnic grudges and strongman mentalities get in the way of civilized governance. Despite all the aid poured into Africa, things just get worse. Is that the fault of colonialism? Hardly. Now, although colonialism worked, it was a deterrent to nation building so I am against it over the long term. But, at some point, Africa has to take the blame for its woes.

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
Is that the best you got to offer Merowe?

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Yeah, I'm up against an ignorance threshold here and its just not worth the time.

It's not my fault if you're too intellectually lazy to get up to speed on the subject before blurting your embarrassing opinions all over the place.

'When Africa achieves the characteristics of civil society...'

'...an environment of violence and incompetence and corruption...'

'The dirty remark about Africa among older aid workers...'

'A generation of freedom...'

'Despite all the aid poured into Africa...'

'Now, although colonialism worked...'

Nope. Summary dismissal is about all I can muster for this depth of ignorance, sorry.

[ 06 March 2006: Message edited by: Merowe ]

Sorry to be pedantic, but the opening use of the word "developing" is just wrong and terribly misleading. I can't believe that Stephen Lewis applied the term "developing" to Western countries - really, I can't.

I also don't believe that he used "irascible" this way:

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"It's a very irascible and disturbing phenomenon to have western countries poaching on the few professionals that these countries have."

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What on earth would "irascible" mean in that context?

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"You can imagine what it means when a little impoverished country makes that kind of investment and then loses its professionals who it needs so intensely."

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What kind of investment are they making in them after graduation?

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posted by $1000 Wedding: That's so mighty white of you. Instead of laying the blame for Africa's plight at the doorstep of African leadership and culture you want to prevent educated Africans from bettering their lives. When Africa achieves the characteristics of civil society then educated Africans shall return. "Preventing" foreign companies from recruiting them sounds like another hopeless regulation that can never be enforced. Easy for you to tell African professionals to work in an environment of violence and incompetence and corruption while you sit in the comfort of Canada. ...

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someone is always losing in that merry go round, no doubt

But, what concretely can you do?
Voters demand that immigrants bring skills to their new country, the more skills the better, and emigrants are eager to comply.

I saw a map of retention and loss of professionals in 3rd World countries that indicated that some countries did far far better at retaining their professionals, and they were not just the richer developing countries. Something to do with level of social coherence and structures.
Anyone know more details about this subject?

In any case, many many emigrants are quite willing to return home should opportunities arise in the old country, witness most spectacularly (but unrepresentatively) the mass return of grad school-trained South Koreans from the U.S. to their homeland.

So economic opportunities, not constraints, are the key to retention. How you balance that with today's African realities, I dunno.

As for the jibe above - attributed to "older aid workers" - that Africa was better governed under a colonial administration, I have heard that remark made repeatedly in Central Africa - most often by older women in small towns and villages. Despair at the current state of things is widespread, hardly a recipe for retaining ambitious young people.

[ 06 March 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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Originally posted by $1000 Wedding:
That's so mighty white of you. Instead of laying the blame for Africa's plight at the doorstep of African leadership and culture you want to prevent educated Africans from bettering their lives. When Africa achieves the characteristics of civil society then educated Africans shall return. "Preventing" foreign companies from recruiting them sounds like another hopeless regulation that can never be enforced. Easy for you to tell African professionals to work in an environment of violence and incompetence and corruption while you sit in the comfort of Canada.

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Who said anything about forcing anyone to stay anywhere? The subject is the social and political systems in Africa that make it more appealing to leave than to stay, and how to fix that system so that Africa will retain the professionals needed to develop. And do you even know how the aid/debt structures work? African countries have paid back far more in interest on their loans than they ever borrowed. What's up with that?