Our Online Health Education Team Interviewed African Hospitals. These Are The Results...

Jan 14

Here is what we found out...

Our market research team at LEAP recently interviewed several public and private hospitals across Africa (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) and we are excited to share some of our key takeaways from these interviews with you:

Job Opportunities:

The demand for skilled and educated healthcare workers varies depending on the countries' needs and the needs of the health facility. Many of the hospital stakeholders with whom we spoke hire between 30 and 100 people yearly, indicating they have allocated their resources appropriately to foster such high employment rates. 

Another finding that is well-known to many is the unwillingness of healthcare providers to move to rural or deprived areas. The healthcare professionals that we spoke to are continuously looking for staff in these areas and often resort to bringing in staff from capital cities to help in emergencies.

Regarding remuneration, each facility had its own unique challenges. A number of them assign various allowances to each department for yearly salary revisions and increases, which is quite dynamic (and exciting) in comparison to many other industries where salary revisions happen after several years. However, many others are unfortunately placed in a position due to financial constraints to pay healthcare providers regardless of experience and job roles around the same salaries.

Finally, we learned that healthcare facilities often recruit healthcare workers from other African countries to work as interns, full-time employees, or consultants. Hospitals say they do this because foreigners bring new knowledge, experiences, and perspectives to the table. This is one of the main reasons that drove LEAP to make health education accessible across the continent so that our students can learn new topics and stay up-to-date on new health innovations from anywhere, and use their new knowledge and skills in their country or across African borders.

Brain Drain:

Despite the efforts to retain healthcare providers in Africa, professionals still feel the need to migrate outside of Africa to further their knowledge on specific topics, enter into a specialization, or seek better remuneration.
The issue here is that they often do not come back, leaving their communities behind with fewer healthcare workers to tackle health needs. Having learned about this issue earlier in LEAPs' creation, it was a significant motivating factor behind LEAP's online learning model. We understand the threat the Brain Drain still presents in Africa, which is why we offer mobile-friendly courses that upskill our students in relevant healthcare fields so they can address the health needs in their community.
 
Capacity Building:

Generating capacity was of great importance for many of the health facilities we spoke to. We learned that although medical and para-medical education has increased considerably during the last decades, the system does not always prepare professionals for what is truly needed in the market, even with continuous training efforts. The future of work and preparing individuals to enter the workforce with relevant skills is something that LEAP is doing. Our partnerships with leading institutions to create contextualized, job-ready educational content to fit the context, imagery, and case studies to match the country, prepare our students to tackle the realities of the market.
* We would like to thank the many HR Representatives, Hospital Executives, and Medical Specialists that took the time to share insight on current industry topics!
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