Background: Past attempts to estimate the cost of migration were limited to education costs only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objectives of this study were: (i) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of Kenyan doctors to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA); (ii) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of nurses to seven OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, UK, USA); and (iii) to describe other losses from brain drain.

Perspectives 892Perspectives Information technology to bridge the health workforce gap

Many African countries have a shortage of health workers. As a response, in 2012, the Ministers of Health in the WHO African Region endorsed a Regional Road Map for Scaling Up the Health Workforce from 2012 to 2025. One of the key milestones of the roadmap was the development of national strategic plans by 2014. It is important to assess the extent to which the strategic plans that countries developed conformed with the WHO Roadmap. We examine the strategic plans for human resource for health (HRH) of sub-Saharan African countries in 2015 and assess the extent to which they take into consideration the WHO African Region’s Roadmap for HRH. A questionnaire seeking data on human resources for health policies and plans was sent to 47 Member States and the responses from 43 countries that returned the questionnaires were analysed. Only 72% had a national plan of action for attaining the HRH target. This did not meet the 2015 target for the WHO, Regional Office for Africa’s Roadmap. The plans that were available addressed the six areas of the roadmap. Despite all their efforts, countries will need further support to comprehensively implement the six strategic areas to maintain the health workers required for universal health coverage

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IntroductionSeveral efforts have been made globally to strengthen the health workforce (HWF); however, significant challenges still persist especially in the African Region. This study was conducted by the WHO Regional Office for Africa to present the status of the HWF in 47 countries as a baseline in measuring countries’ progress in implementing the Global Strategy for HWF by 2030.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional survey of 47 countries in the African Region using a semistructured questionnaire. Data were collected from January 2018 to April 2019. Before data collection, a tool was developed and piloted in four countries. The completed tools were validated in the countries by relevant stakeholders in the 47 countries. Data were collated and analysed in Epi Info and Microsoft Excel.ResultsThe total stock of health workers was approximately 3.6 million across 47 countries. Among these, 37% of the health workers were nurses and midwives, 9% were medical doctors, 10% were laboratory personnel, 14% were community health workers, 14% were other health workers, and 12% were administrative and support staff. Results show uneven distribution of health workers within the African Region. Most health workers (85%) are in the public sector. Regional density of physicians, nurses and midwives per 1000 population was 1.55, only 4 countries had densities of more than 4.45 physicians, nurses and midwives per 1000 population.ConclusionThis survey has demonstrated that the shortage and maldistribution of health workers in the WHO African Region remain a big challenge towards the attainment of universal access to health services. This calls for the need to substantially increase investment in the HWF based on contextual evidence in line with the current and future health needs.