Recipient countries were often required to cap the public-sector wage bill, resulting in the emigration of large numbers of doctors and nurses to high-income countries. In the 1980s, the number of doctors in Ghana fell by half, and only one-sixth of Senegal’s nurses remained, compared to the start of the decade.[46] Structural adjustment programs frequently introduced user fees for health care that mimicked the U.S. model. As a result, the poor were unable to access even the most basic care. For example, when the World Bank forced Kenya to impose a charge of thirty-three cents to see a doctor,
...more
