The ban follows the World Health Organisation’s (WHO)
recent Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List 2023, that highlighted that
eight countries have dangerously low numbers of healthcare workers. The
development has been lauded by the Government as noble and one that will ensure
the country retains its skilled healthcare workforce.
“Zimbabwe has been placed on the list of countries where
developed countries cannot actively recruit health workers from. Zimbabwe was
not a part of that but now that placement by WHO means the UK and other
countries may not actively recruit from the country. The UK has always had its
own code in recruitment and therefore this placement gives them an even bigger
interface to regularise if not completely stop the active recruitment directly
by government agents from the UK,” said acting secretary of the Health Services
Commission Mr Engelbert Mbengwa.
WHO is concerned that low-income countries may suffer
further losses in their healthcare systems if active recruitment continues.
“The fourth progress report on the WHO Global Code of
Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel: fourth round of
national reporting, noted that the negative health, economic and social impact
of Covid-19, coupled with the increasing demand for health and care workers in
high-income countries, might be increasing vulnerabilities within countries
already suffering from low health workforce densities.”
A revised code of practice for recruiting internationally
for health and social care organisations in England noted the important role
that international health and care workers play in health and care service
delivery in the UK and expressed commitment to ensuring that they recruit from
overseas in an ethically responsible manner.
“Health and social care organisations in England do not
actively recruit from those countries the World Health Organisation (WHO)
recognise as having the most pressing health and care workforce-related
challenges unless there is government-to-government agreement to support
managed recruitment activities,” read part of the new code.
Mr Mbengwa said the move was positive in that it ensured
the health delivery system of the country remained afloat. He said the UK
government has taken an active approach where its agencies that recruit from
other countries may not be allowed to recruit from Zimbabwe because of the
additional safeguard list. He however, said the stance will improve the
recruitment process of Zimbabwean health and social care workers.
“What this means is that the recruitment process will
become better-managed. All recruitment will have to be on a regularised system.
However, individuals have rights to migration and association, and can still
like anybody else, resign from work on their own and look for a job on their
own, that no one can stop. But it (migration) will not be institutionalised,
there will not be a government-approved agency from the UK that will be allowed
or authorised by the UK to come and recruit,” he added.
He said the new safeguards will slow down the rate at which
people were being taken through institutional agencies.
“This is just the early days, we have not seen how it will
play out,” added Mr Mbengwa.
Mr Itai Rusike, Executive Director Community Working Group
on Health (CWGH) said the human resource flight in the country’s health sector
had reached levels that required intervention by authorities.
“We welcome the intense lobbying efforts of the World
Health Organisation that got Zimbabwe added to the Health Workforce Support and
Safeguards List. Our government is spending a fortune training health workers
at highly subsidised cost only to lose them immediately after to countries that
have better economies. We hope that our Government will move quickly to exploit
this win-win outcome,” said Mr Rusike.
He said the recipient countries will now have no choice but
to play according to the rules of WHO’s Global Code of Practice on
International Recruitment of Health Personnel.
“We also hope that the recipient countries will also appreciate
their responsibility in actively benefiting from high-quality health
professionals trained by a highly government-subsidised programme with their
zero input,” he said.
Mr Rusike added that it is also important for the
government to value and reward health workers in order to retain and harness
talent as health professionals were essential workers that needed to be well
looked after.
“For some low and lower-middle-income countries, increasing
the scale of health and social care worker migration threatens the achievement
of national health and social care goals. Countries on the red list must not be
targeted for international recruitment unless there is a government-to-government
agreement negotiated.
“Government-to-government agreements must take steps to
ensure that migration to the UK does not exacerbate existing health and social
care workforce shortages in the country of origin, and the country of origin
derives proportional benefits as set out in the ‘Health workforce development
and health systems’ sustainability’ section,” they added in a statement.
A number of care givers training centres had also mushroomed across the country, with some rogue agencies making a killing by making locals pay to be employed abroad. Sunday News
0 comments:
Post a Comment