The silence at the departure gates at airports across Africa and Asia is now noticeable as one can almost hear the hush of heartbreak and uncertainty, with their white uniforms and other different colourful scrubs folded into suitcases, alongside other necessary certifications clutched like passports of deliverance. These people are not just tourists leaving, they are lifelines departing. When empathy becomes an export of what we fundamentally need such as our best teachers, brightest doctors, and kind-hearted nurses, it is no longer an alliance but an imbalance with courteous paperwork.
Is it wrong to seek better pay, safer work, or a brighter future? The simple answer is no. But the tragedy now lies in the system that forces healers to flee before they can reform. Doctors Nurses, midwives, carers, men and women whose hands once steadied the trembling pulse of a nation now wave goodbye to the wards they built with sweat and prayers. They board flights to London, Toronto, Riyadh, and Sydney, seeking dignity, stability, and safety. Yet every stride toward the jet bridge lies a paradox: the healers themselves are fleeing wounds they did not inflict as they bleed locally.
In the United Kingdom for example, continuous changes in immigration and visa rules have turned gratitude into uncertainty. Overseas caregivers who were once hailed as pandemic heroes now face regular shifting of goalposts and economic pressures that bruise their morale. Meanwhile, in countries like Nigeria, the Philippines, Ghana, and Kenya to name a few, are now faced with a shortage of staff in their various hospitals that echo with emptiness as Patients outnumber nurses and surgical lists grow dusty.
Some pregnant women pass away due to a prolonged waiting time for their midwives who are now caring for someone else’s grandmother abroad. The statistics whisper a silent crisis as more than half a million healthcare professionals have migrated from developing nations in the past five years. But beyond the data lies a deeper ache, the loss of continuity, mentorship, and community care. The question is who heals the healers? The stethoscope that was once a symbol of compassion, now doubles as a passport. The future of healthcare must not be defined by migration, but by mutual restoration.
Many healthcare workers abroad do double shifts, caring for the elderly, the frail, and the forgotten, while their own families age without them. They soothe strangers’ pain but swallow their own loneliness between shifts. When policies change, pay lags, or homesickness hits, they must smile, because “they should be strong.” But we all know that strength is not the absence of tears as healers also bleed silently and professionally. The simple question now is who heals them? Who listens when the caregiver breaks? This is an explicit case of a tale within two systems and until we develop a structure that rewards empathy at home, we will continue to lose great potential in foreign soil.
While the government count remittances, families hope for blessings; but health care workers calculate endless hours that trade presence for provision. The Exodus of Healers asks us to look not at those leaving, but at what drives them to leave. This should challenge policymakers to create an enabling environment where care is not martyrdom.
But there is still hope, though faint but faithful. Perhaps one day, when nations learn that healing begins with how they treat their healers, then the white uniforms and multi coloured scrubs will not have to travel so far to find peace and fulfilment in their chosen careers.
✍🏽 William Z. Bozimo
Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper
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