Retired but not tired: Why we need some rationality here

After about 40 years of working in May 2013 I received a letter that I had to retire because I was turning 60 years. This was not a big surprise since I was well aware of rules and regulations, in a way it was expected.

I was not worried that I was now retiring. Most of my colleagues’ discussion was how well are we prepared financially for the retirement. This was not my worry. I had lived a very simple and pragmatic life and with the pension I would receive I would be able to continue with the same lifestyle.

My deep worry was that it took me years and really hard work to reach the academic ladder and now someone was telling me that I had reached the peak of my incompetency hence I should retire.

At that time I was supervising a couple of PhDs and M.Sc. students. I was full of energy and healthy thus the whole issue of retiring as a professor of medicine at 60 years did not make sense. The truth is, we are healthier and living longer than any previous generation.

With an arbitrary age limit of 60 years it was not rational for a country like Tanzania to retire its work force of academicians, since more of us would want to continue working into later years of life because we genuinely enjoy what we do and still feel the passion and energy to do it.

Retiring when still healthy and able to contribute is undignified. This brings up the core question: what should be the ideal and right age to retire. What’s so magic about retiring at 60 years?

At the same time when I was retiring also a driver was retiring. We were in the same basket, a university professor and a driver all retiring at 60 years

The argument for retiring at 60 is simple: making room for the younger generation. Younger folks need the opportunities, and there is a need for continual renewal at work places and new ideas are infused.

The solution of unemployment will not be sorted out by retiring at 60 years, what is important is to create more jobs and opportunities. Thus I still feel that you can replace the driver next day while post 40 years I have not been replaced.

It took almost 30 years to become a full professor and when I was at the peak in terms of contribution I had to retire. I feel there is something grossly wrong; politicians have no retirement age, and one can be a member of Parliament as long as one is elected or nominated. Thus there is no rationality.

A two-year contract was available if I had chosen to continue but it was rather undignified and it appears someone is doing a big favour to me and that I was under some obligation. At another level with a serious shortage of human resource in the health sector, who is really losing by my retirement?

I know a number of my colleagues have left and taken up farming! I relocated to Kenya and joined a private university. In Kenya I understand professors do not retire hence they could not believe that I had to retire.

At Western University in Canada, the number of faculty choosing not to retire at 65 has risen steadily since the lifting of the mandatory age requirement in 2006. Today, 95 of Western’s 1,100 professors – close to 10 per cent – are older than 65, and 21 of these are in there 70s. That reflects what’s happening at most universities as well as larger social trends.

In 2012, Statistics Canada reported that 24 per cent of Canadians aged 65 to 69 were still in the workforce, compared with 11 per cent in 2000.

The health workforce is the backbone of each countries health system, the lubricant that facilitates the smooth implementation of health action for sustainable socio-economic development.

It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the density of the health workforce is directly correlated with positive health outcomes. In other words, health workers save lives and improve health. About 59 million people make up the health workforce of paid full-time health workers worldwide.

However, enormous gaps remain between the potential of health systems and their actual performance, and there are far too many inequities in the distribution of health workers between countries and within countries. The Americas (mainly USA and Canada) are home to 14 per cent of the world’s population, bear only 10 per cent of the world’s disease burden, have 37 per cent of the global health workforce and spend about 50 per cent of the world’s financial resources for health.

Conversely, sub-Saharan Africa, with about 11 per cent of the world’s population bears over 24 per cent of the global disease burden, is home to only 3 per cent of the global health workforce, and spends less than 1 per cent of the world’s financial resources on health.