African hospitals suffer as nurses

An estimated 35 people were injured during the army crackdown on August 1, 2018.

State security agents also launched a crackdown on opposition and civil society activists in the aftermath of the events of August 1, 2018.

Following an international outcry, President Emmerson Mnangagwa set up a commission of inquiry to investigate events leading to the August 1 shootings.

Former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe chaired the commission.

The commission recommended the compensation of the victims, and to ensure that those responsible for the army killings are brought to book.

Implementing electoral reforms, nation building, reconciliation and political tolerance and the use of the military as a last resort formed part of the recommendations of the commission.

Mnangagwa has, however, come

LAGOS — Emem Isong screamed in pain on a trolley outside a hospital accident and emergency department in Nigeria's biggest city after a car ran over her foot and broke two of her toes.

"Please hold on ... there are just three of us on duty," a nurse at the Ebute-Metta federal medical centre in Lagos told the 33-year-old. "The alternative is for you to go to another hospital."

After a five-hour wait, nurses tended to Isong's wounds.

"It was either I wait till it is my turn or they refer me to another hospital that will turn me away," said Isong.

Nigeria, like many other African countries, is suffering a flight of talent from its fragile healthcare sector as richer countries woo underpaid but skilled professionals — a situation its government hopes to remedy with new legislation.

Michael Nnachi, president of Nigeria's nursing union, said more than 11,000 of 150 000 members had left the workforce since the Covid-19 pandemic to seek better pay and conditions abroad.

The economic downturn in Nigeria has only boosted the trend, said the nursing union's chairman, Olurotimi Awojide.

"Food, transport and rent are high, and money they pay now can't meet our needs. Nurses feel they need to go out of the country to live a better life," he said.

Nigeria has been on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) list of countries with a shortage of healthcare workers since 2020. Foreign employers are discouraged from recruiting nurses from the list, twothirds of which this year are African states.

But the list has proven ineffective in stemming the exodus and Nigerian hospital managers say patient care is suffering as there are not enough new nurses to replace those moving abroad.

Wasiu Adeyemo has managed under fire for lacking political will to implement the recommendations almost five years later.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiCZ) has made several ad

Lagos University Teaching Hospital for more than a decade, but said he has never seen staff shortages as bad as now.

Four wards with more than 90 beds remain shut at the facility, one of Nigeria's biggest specialist hospitals, with no nurses to operate them.

"Everyone talks about doctors leaving when the real problem we're facing is nurses going daily," Adeyemo told Context.

"At this point, are we saying we're going to hire nurses from Sudan or Cuba?" he asked. "Few nurses apply for jobs, and when we employ them ... about 50% will resign after three months to go to the UK."

Britain is the favoured destination for Nigerian nurses.

Last year, 7 200 Nigerian nurses were registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Britain's professional body. Only the Philippines and India had more nurses in Britain.

The British government says employers should not actively recruit from places like Nigeria on what it calls the "red list" of countries where the WHO says there is a shortage of healthcare workers. But candidates from those countries can still apply for jobs advertised in Britain.

Nigerians received 12% of the skilled health and care worker visas issued last year, Britain's Home Office said.

Nigerian nurse Josephine is about to add to the number. The 28-year-old said she resigned from one of Nigeria's leading cancer care hospitals after receiving a UK visa last month.

Her husband sold their car and she is selling furniture and appliances before taking up her new job as a critical care nurse in the private sector in Britain.

The mother of two, who asked for her surname not to be used, said it was increasingly hard to live on her 100,000 naira (US$135) monthly salary.

"I'm on duty at hospital all weekend, away from my children, all to be paid peanuts at the end of the