The Coping Strategies fo Rural Doctors in Portuguese Speaking African Countries (PSAC)

Abstract

In Portuguese-speaking African countries. (PSAC), as in many developing countries, public sector doctors and nurses invest in a multiplicity of income-generating activities to complement the low salaries and produce other incomes. These activities can be considered as part of each individual's strategies of health personnel to cope with the often extreme discrepancies between social, economic and professional expectations and real-life situations. Given the importance of private practice as one of the income supplementation strategies of government officials, this paper sets out to explore the type of such side activities, and their distribution and differences between urban and rural settings.