A 2006 study by BMC Health services Research titled 'The cost of Health Professionals Brain Drain in Kenya' has put the cost of educating a doctor from school to university at US$65,997. Over the work life of a doctor who has migrated abroad, the loss has been estimated at US$517,931.
A 2012 study published in The Lancet titled 'Perceptions of Medical Brain Drain among young doctors in Kenya: a cross-sectional survey' showed that 90 percent of surveyed doctors 50 years or younger were not satisfied with their pay.
An U.S. Aid-led study of 2014 titled ‘Workforce Connections Kenya Youth Assessment’ reported that the number of doctors in the country in 2012 was 8,092 bringing the number of doctors per 100,000 people to 20. According to the report, 51 percent of doctors born in Kenya worked abroad. However, most of them had trained abroad and not in Kenya. The number of doctors trained in Kenya and working abroad was 7 percent. It was also found that 40 percent of doctors who had been trained in Kenya were working in other professions for reasons of better pay even as the country faced a shortage of doctors.
Dinesh Kumar
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