Africa does not have a shortage of nursing graduates. Every year, thousands walk out of colleges and universities ready to serve.
The real problem? Our health systems are built to push them straight out again.
The Numbers Tell Only Half the Story
- Sub-Saharan Africa has about 1.5 nurses and midwives per 1,000 people – less than half the global average.
- The WHO says we need millions more by 2030.
- Yet the same reports show up to 70 % of newly trained nurses plan to leave within five years.
This is not a training problem. This is a retention collapse.
Why Good Nurses Walk Away
The reasons are painfully simple:
- Salaries so low that experienced nurses still live below the poverty line
- One nurse responsible for 40, 60, sometimes 80 patients in a single shift
- Empty drug shelves and broken equipment that force nurses to watch patients die needlessly
- No clear career path, no proper rest, no mental-health support
- Salaries that arrive late – or not at all
These are not mistakes. They are choices repeated year after year.
The Truth Behind the Graduation Photos
Governments love opening new nursing schools and handing out scholarships for the cameras.
But they rarely talk about the empty wards those same graduates will never staff because the working conditions are unbearable.
Foreign recruiters don’t have to chase African nurses. They just offer what every nurse deserves:
→ a living wage
→ safe staffing levels
→ working equipment
→ basic respect
Our nurses don’t run away. They walk toward dignity.
Three Things That Must Change – Right Now
No more decade-long studies. No more donor conferences. Real change needs only three decisions:
- Pay nurses a professional salary that matches the value of the lives they save.
- Enforce safe staffing ratios – and have the courage to close beds that cannot be staffed properly.
- Guarantee steady supplies of drugs, gloves, electricity, and water so nurses never have to apologise for system failure again.
Until nursing is treated as critical national infrastructure instead of cheap labour, every graduation day will quietly double as a farewell party.
Africa already knows the price of losing its nurses.
The only question left is how much longer we are prepared to keep paying it.
What will it finally take for us to value nurses every single day – not just on International Nurses Day?
Share your thoughts below. If you know a nurse who’s been pushed to the limit, tag them. They deserve to be heard.
Fellow Nurses Africa is the independent voice of African nursing. We educate, inform and support nurses across Africa.
