IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v69y2009i2p172-177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Doctors leaving 12 tertiary hospitals in Iraq, 2004-2007

Author

Listed:
  • Burnham, Gilbert M.
  • Lafta, Riyadh
  • Doocy, Shannon

Abstract

Medical doctors leaving less developed countries are now part of a global labour market. This doctor migration has been extensively studied from economic and health systems perspectives. Seldom, however has the specific role of the conflict or the collapsing state been considered as a cause of migration. Using hospital staffing records we measured the changes in numbers of medical specialists at 12 Iraqi tertiary hospitals (in Baghdad, Basra, Erbil and Mosul) between 2004 and 2007. For doctors leaving their posts, we attempted to determine destinations and circumstances of departure. We counted 1243 specialists in the 12 hospitals on January 1, 2004. This declined to 1166 or 94% of the original number by late 2007. In Baghdad, specialists decreased to 78% by late 2007, Outside Baghdad, specialists numbered 134% of the original count by 2007. In Baghdad, replacements kept pace with losses until 2005, with loss rates peaking in 2006 at 29%. Outside Baghdad, gains exceeded losses each year. Violent event rates associated with the migration of doctors were estimated as: threats 30/1000 doctors; kidnappings 6.7/1000; violent deaths 16.5/1000, and any violent event 36.7/1000. Specialists who left Baghdad were 2.5 times more likely to experience a violent event than doctors elsewhere. Specialists departing teaching hospitals were 2.3 times more likely to experience a violent event than those in general hospitals. Of specialists leaving hospital posts for which data were available, 39% went elsewhere in Iraq and 61% left the country. These findings suggest a major loss of human capital from Iraq's hospital sector, a loss that is likely to require some years to fully replace.

Suggested Citation

  • Burnham, Gilbert M. & Lafta, Riyadh & Doocy, Shannon, 2009. "Doctors leaving 12 tertiary hospitals in Iraq, 2004-2007," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 172-177, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:2:p:172-177
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(09)00304-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arah, O.A. & Ogbu, U.C. & Okeke, C.E., 2008. "Too poor to leave, too rich to stay: Developmental and global health correlates of physician migration to the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(1), pages 148-154.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valeria Cetorelli & Gilbert Burnham & Nazar Shabila, 2017. "Health needs and care seeking behaviours of Yazidis and other minority groups displaced by ISIS into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-10, August.
    2. Footer, Katherine H.A. & Meyer, Sarah & Sherman, Susan G. & Rubenstein, Leonard, 2014. "On the frontline of eastern Burma's chronic conflict – Listening to the voices of local health workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 378-386.
    3. Kirschner, Shanna A. & Finaret, Amelia B., 2021. "Conflict and health: Building on the role of infrastructure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Atheer Kadhim Ibadi, 2018. "Describing of Referral Health System for Pregnant Women in Al-Najaf-Iraq," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 4(4), pages 4051-4055, May.
    5. Varley, Emma, 2010. "Targeted doctors, missing patients: Obstetric health services and sectarian conflict in Northern Pakistan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 61-70, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Okeke, Edward N., 2013. "Brain drain: Do economic conditions “push” doctors out of developing countries?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 169-178.
    2. Evgenia Anastasiou & Georgia Anagnostou & George Theodossiou & Vasileios Papamargaritis, 2020. "Physicians' Brain Drain: Investigating the Determinants to Emigrate Through Empirical Evidence," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 13(2), pages 83-92, September.
    3. Varas-Díaz, Nelson & Rodríguez-Madera, Sheilla & Padilla, Mark & Rivera-Bustelo, Kariela & Mercado-Ríos, Claudia & Rivera-Custodio, Joshua & Matiz-Reyes, Armando & Santiago-Santiago, Adrián & González, 2023. "On leaving: Coloniality and physician migration in Puerto Rico," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    4. Mihi-Ramírez Antonio & García Rodríguez Yolanda & Metelski Dominik, 2015. "Economic Factors Concerning The Migration Of The Best Educated Workers. The Case Of College Teachers / Wpływ Czynników Ekonomicznych na Migrację Pracowników z Wysokimi Kwalifikacjami. Przykład Pracown," Comparative Economic Research, Sciendo, vol. 18(4), pages 99-122, December.
    5. Adebusola Adebayo & Oluwaseun Oladapo Akinyemi, 2022. "“What Are You Really Doing in This Country?”: Emigration Intentions of Nigerian Doctors and Their Policy Implications for Human Resource for Health Management," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1377-1396, September.
    6. Kevin J. A. Thomas, 2016. "Highly Skilled Migration from Africa to the US: Exit Mechanisms, Demographic Determinants, and the Role of Socioeconomic Trends," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(6), pages 825-849, December.
    7. Kuhlmann, Ellen & Batenburg, Ronald & Groenewegen, Peter P. & Larsen, Christa, 2013. "Bringing a European perspective to the health human resources debate: A scoping study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 6-13.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:2:p:172-177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.