Africa: Alarm expressed at flight of health professionals

Wealthy countries "deliberately" enlist doctors and nurses from poor nations, costing developing states US $500 million a year in lost training, Ndioro Ndiaye, deputy director-general of the International Organisation for Migration, said. According to Ndiaye, the UK drafted more than 8,000 nurses and midwives from outside of Europe in the year 2000. This was in addition to the 30,000 hired over previous years. Some 21,000 Nigerian doctors were working in the US the same year, while there were more doctors from Benin working in France than in their own country, she said.