Zimbabwe has been hit by a huge exodus of health professionals amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 2 200 leaving to take jobs in the US, UK, Australia and neighbouring states.
According to the government’s Health Service Board, this is more than double the number of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who left last year, and three times the number that left in 2019.
Despite repeated government promises to improve wages, they remain low.
An average worker in the public sector takes home less than 200 dollars a month, while in the UK, which relaxed visa restrictions for health workers last year, they can earn 10 times as much.
Officials say the exodus has affected an already fragile health system, which suffers from a lack of medical equipment and medicines.
