Health Workforce Brain Drain: From Denouncing the Challenge to Solving the Problem

摘要

Migration of health workers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to high-income countries is one of the most controversial aspects of globalization, having attracted considerable attention in the health policy discourse at both the technical and political level [1]. Some countries (e.g., the Philippines [2]) train health workers to export them overseas and reap the financial benefits of remittances; such investments should therefore be considered as driven primarily by economic—rather than population health—motives. In most cases, however, migration of health professionals is unplanned for and represents a “brain drain” for source countries, a result of enormous wage differences and poor working conditions, including lack of support, adequate infrastructure, and career development opportunities, in LMICs. The increased recognition that this phenomenon contributes to exacerbating human resources for health (HRH) shortages in LMICs culminated in the adoption of the World Health Organization global code of practice on international recruitment of health personnel (the WHO Code) at the World Health Assembly in 2010 [3].