Global health has a woman's voice
This December, the Bada Grant from the Barcelona College of Physicians has allowed me to look at healthcare from within an African country, without haste (pole pole(as they would say in Swahili). It hasn't just been a training stay. I would say I've entered an invisible network of doctors, nurses, managers, and researchers who not only heal, but also draw, with colored pencils, the map of the healthcare systems of the future. Frontline women who don't ask permission to lead, and women in open public health offices where decisions save lives before the ambulances even leave. Powerful, in capital letters, and often exhausted, silently. And perhaps that's why, reading the Women in Global Health report... The great resignation: why female healthcare professionals are leaving I choked on my coffee (by the way, Kenyan and delicious).
The report, which remains relevant despite being a couple of years old, has shown me both sides of the same coin. On the one hand, there are these women I've met, role models who remain steadfast. On the other hand, there's a worrying global trend, given that hundreds of thousands of professionals are leaving the profession or emigrating, exhausted by a system that doesn't support them.
Women represent 70% of the global healthcare workforce, yet hold less than 25% of leadership positions. They are the majority in diagnosing and treating, but a minority in making decisions. This imbalance has consequences, because when decision-makers are insensitive to the precarious conditions on the ground, solutions run out. Because providing care in broken systems, with salaries that don't reflect the emotional burden, and in structures where the glass ceiling is thicker than concrete, comes at an invisible price: the loss of our most valuable professionals.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, warnings were being issued about the shortage of healthcare professionals worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. With the "mass exodus" of professionals, this already diagnosed shortage is widening and, moreover, is being compounded by the "mass migration" highlighted in the report. These professionals are leaving for other countries in search of better conditions. Thus, the exodus of professionals exacerbates the situation in high-income healthcare systems and drains the resources of low- and middle-income systems.
Beyond training new professionals, the challenge is retaining that talent. Not with medals, but with responsive structures. And this benefits everyone. An equitable healthcare system, with female voices at all levels, is more likely to be more resilient, more responsive, and more sustainable. Ultimately, it contributes to stronger and more advanced health systems. The women I met this December aren't leaving: they're staying to build. And they need institutional allies, not applause. The future of healthcare won't be saved by numbers alone; it will be saved by people who, like them, decide that another way of doing things is possible. And they do it. And this, more than any diagnosis, is what makes me optimistic.
