Ugandan nurses increasingly migrate to other geographies in search of jobs

(3 minutes read)

Ugandan nurses are looking beyond the country for their employment, reveals a new report.  For the uninitiated, every year Uganda produces about 5,000 nurses. Of that, only about 2,000 are employed in government hospitals since the job opportunities are few

Ugandan nurses are looking beyond the country for their employment, reveals a new report.  For the uninitiated, every year Uganda produces about 5,000 nurses. Of that, only about 2,000 are employed in government hospitals since the job opportunities are few. Only a few are taken by the government hospitals, leaving most of the passed-out candidates on a continuous job search.

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Though the government hospitals need over 40,000 nurses in the health sector, because of the wage bill, the government could not do so. Therefore, nurses are overworked. Uganda’s Health Minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng says policies are being put in place to ensure nurses and other health professionals are brought into the health sector. The disgruntled persons, who have to wait for a long time to get a call from a government hospital, are now increasingly looking beyond the country for employment. There is a heavy rush to migrate to foreign countries seeking better pastures.

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This is taking place at a time African countries have not yet reached the World Health Organization’s recommendations for the number of health workforce per population. For a country like Uganda, it is as low as 2 per 10,000 per population. Yet, the government is only a passive onlooker in the large-scale migration taking place due to the paucity of resources.

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Despite the challenges in Uganda, many students continue to enroll in nursing schools. There’s a full classroom here at Mulago Training School For Nurses and Midwives in the capital, Kampala. The loss of nurses overseas is raising concerns that the number of medical workers in the country will grow too small to provide care for an increasing number of patients.