Abstract
Background: The healthcare sector around the world has seen a growing shortage of qualified healthcare workers. The loss of skilled healthcare workers due to economic migration has become a growing concern for many low- and middle-income countries, including South Africa. South African healthcare workers are globally competitive due to the historically high standard of health education and training in the country. One such cadre of South African healthcare workers is the emergency care practitioner. Emergency care practitioners work primarily in the prehospital emergency care setting. The current context is such that there are many South African emergency care practitioners that leave the country within a few years of qualifying to take up employment opportunities in the Midde East. This said, there is little literature describing in sufficient depth the reasons for South African qualified emergency care practitioners to migrate and more specifically to choose the Middle East as their destination country. Understanding these reasons can assist healthcare managers to implement measures that may improve the retention of highly skilled healthcare workers such as ECPs.
Aim: The aim of the study was to identify and describe factors that may be influencing South African emergency care practitioners to migrate and work in the Middle Eastern region.
Methods: The researcher followed a prospective, mixed-method sequential design that consisted of two phases. The first phase included the distribution of a purposely designed pre-piloted survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to identify factors that contributed to South African emergency care practitioners’ decision to leave South Africa and work in the Middle East. The second phase consisted of a number of one-on-one interviews with a sample of respondents to explore in more depth the top four factors that emerged from analysis of responses to the questionnaire.
Results: A total of 55 responses were analysed. Phase one of this study found that low salaries (87%), desire to gain international experience (56%), poor working conditions and environment (46%) and poor management at the workplace (40%), were the four main push factors that contributed to respondents decision to seek employment outside of South Africa. Higher salaries (100%), better safety and security (65%), the prospect of gaining
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international experience (63%) and a better quality of life in the Middle East (59%) were found to be the four main pull factors that caused participants to choose the Middle East as an employment destination.
Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that higher salaries, a safer working environment and generally better working conditions renders the Middle East a sought-after destination of employment for South African qualified emergency care practitioners. Much work has to be done to improve the working conditions and job satisfaction experienced by South Africa emergency care practitioners if local employers are to stem the exodus of this cadre of healthcare providers. Additional research is advised that should focus on exploring different options that are available to healthcare managers to address the push factors identified in this study in order to improve the retention of emergrncy care practitioners within their services.