Leave for more pay in UK

month," Josephine said.

Her British employers will pay 20 times what she now earns, she said.

Although Zimbabwe is much smaller than Nigeria, it was the number one African country receiving skilled health workers' visas from the UK - accounting for 16% last year.

Before she came to Britain, Tendai earned about US$200 a month as a senior nurse in Zimbabwe. The mother-of-three moved two years ago for a better career and better future for her children.

Her take-home pay at a hospital in the south of England is more than 10 times her salary back home. Though the high cost of living means half her salary goes on rent and bills, she does not have to pay for her daughters' schooling.

"Life in the UK is expensive, but at the end of the day, you are able to afford the basics. I know my kids have the basic things in terms of food, clothes ... compared to back home," said Tendai, who asked for her real name not to be used.

More than 4 000 doctors and nurses have left Zimbabwe since 2021, according to its Health Services Board.

Zimbabwe was added to the WHO list of countries where health workers should not be recruited for the first time in March.

Tendai said many nurses who had paid to take English-language tests and process travel documents were unhappy as it made getting jobs abroad harder without recruiters' help.

"Some nurses have lost a lot of money - because they had done all these things," she said. "People spend two years working towards coming to the UK and then, when you think you are almost there, the red list comes."

Zimbabwean Health Minister Constantino Chiwenga said plans were underway to criminalise the foreign recruitment of health professionals and retain the workforce, local media reported.

Back in Nigeria, lawmakers have passed a bill to withhold licences from doctors and dentists until they have practised in the country for five years. The president has yet to sign the bill into law, but one parliamentarian already wants to put the same restrictions on nurses and pharmacists.

Doctors have threatened strike action in response. "It is a lazy approach," said Jesse Otegbayo, professor of medicine at the University College Hospital in the southwestern city of Ibadan. Instead, the government should address health workers' concerns, he said.

James Avoka Asamani, a WHO expert in Africa, said richer nations should compensate countries that had trained health workers to make the process mutually beneficial.