Abstract
Qualified healthcare workers within an effective health system are critical in promoting and achieving greater health outcomes such as those espoused in the Millennium Development Goals. Liberia is currently struggling with the effects of a brutal 14-year long civil war that devastated health infrastructures and caused most qualified health workers to flee and settle in foreign countries. The current output of locally trained health workers is not adequate for the tasks at hand. The recent Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) exposed the failings of the Liberian healthcare system. There is limited evidence of policies that could be replicated in Liberia to encourage qualified diaspora Liberian health workers to return and contribute to managing the phenomenon. This paper reviews the historical context for the human resources for health crisis in Liberia; it critically examines two context-specific health policy options to address the crisis, and recommends reverse brain drain as a policy option to address the immediate and critical crisis facing the health care sector in Liberia.
Highlights
A health system includes all the organization, institutions, people and resources with the primary objective of improving the health of a particular setting.[1]
The overall objective of this paper is to identify some of the key problems facing the Liberian health system, as well as describe the magnitude of the problem
Since the end of the civil war, most of the health professional training institutions that re-opened are not producing the quality of doctors and nurses needed to provide adequate health care for Liberians
Summary
A health system includes all the organization, institutions, people and resources with the primary objective of improving the health of a particular setting.[1]. Most qualified Liberian doctors fled the country due to the civil war and settled in other countries.[9] A reverse brain drain policy would entice native Liberians in the diaspora to share their knowledge and information with local doctors (as well as student doctors) and to take up short-term placements as doctors or lecturers at the various medical schools in Liberia.[11,16] The second policy option is the medical scholarship scheme.This policy will encourage more students to pursue careers in medicine by offering scholarships to study abroad.[16] Both of these options could include actors from the government of Liberia, international and local partners,community groups,private and public health workers and, diaspora Liberian experts.These policy options, if implemented, could strengthen the human resource capacity of the Liberian health system.[10,16] The implementation of either policy would be at the national level, because decision-making is still the responsibility of the Minister of Health of Liberia [9] The section of this paper provides details on the implementation of the two proffered policies. The scholarship scheme will increase the numbers whereas the diaspora option will improve the quality.[17]
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