Malawian doctors – are there more in Manchester, UK than Malawi?

By Charlotte McDonaldBBC News

Are there more doctors from Malawi in the British city of Manchester than there are in Malawi itself? Many people have made this claim – including the authors of an international study of health workers, and the head of Malawi’s main nursing union.

There is no doubt that many African countries would benefit from more medical staff, and this is certainly true of Malawi.

The World Health Organization estimates there is just one doctor for every 40,000 people in Malawi, and that compares to one per 3,000 in Nigeria, and 1 per 400 in the UK.

This has a predictable effect on Malawian healthcare, where 110 children in every 1,000 born will die before the age of five, compared with six per 1,000 in the UK.

If there were more Malawian doctors in Manchester than Malawi it would be a stark illustration of how many badly needed skilled people had left this African country.

But is this particular “fact” true?

The Medical Council of Malawi has 618 doctors on its register, which all physicians have to join if they want to practise in the country. But a good number of these will have arrived in the country from overseas, and others may have left the country.

Recent estimates from the UK’s Department for International Development put the real number of doctors in Malawi at 265.