Healthcare in Ethiopia

There are more Ethiopian origin doctors in the east coast of USA than in Ethiopia. The continuous outflow of qualified medical professionals from Ethiopia to the west started in the 1980s and is increasing every year with the spreading of the information that there is a better payment and working condition in the west. Most of the medical doctors have established a good reputation in the west especially in USA that Ethiopian students have better acceptance rates in medical colleges.


The trend seems destined to continue as 80% of medical students currently enrolled want to leave the country as soon as they can and migrate to the west. Pushed away by the low payment, even when compared with other African countries, and poor working conditions the students plan to finish their national duties. Those medical doctors assigned to the rural part accomplish this in two years while those working in towns can finish it in four or five years.

The government is mostly focused on the expansion of health sectors towards the rural areas and local level prevention rather than providing a standard care and quality service to those who are in the hospitals. In a bold statement the health minister considers the issue as a demand and supply case like business and proposed to tackle it by training more doctors in a policy which seems to focus on quantity rather than quality. I dont think using a facility build for 50 students for 300 students and increasing the number of medical professionals is the key to the problem. This will lower the quality of the students, create a burden on the instructors that might demotivate them and last but not least there is a financial burden to support the new students which could be used to support those top professionals who are already leaving the country.

What do you think?