An Overview on The Migration of Healthcare Workers: Motivations and Barriers 

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Miss Carolina Bolfarini Guiotti Mettifogo, a dynamic and enthisiastic medical student in University of Marília, in Brazil. She is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

The migration of healthcare professionals increases every year, due to many factors, such as employment opportunities, new work experiences, financial or social gain for self and for family, among others. It also depends on the country, for example, in Europe, the quantity of doctors graduated abroad can vary between 2%, like in Italy or Poland, to 40% in Norway or Ireland (2019), and between those workers, only 3.8% where specialists. But not all of them are foreigners: studies have shown that the percentage of native doctors that had their first medical degree on different countries can be up to more than 50%. Furthermore, one of the factors that encourage this increasing is the World Health Organization Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personel (WHO Code, 2010). The code consists of promoting ethical principles and measures to improve the gains from health workers migration and to attenuate the adverse effects of it.  

This growing number can be divided basically on two groups: the first one, already cited above, characterized by natives that studied abroad, and the second one, described as the “brain drain”. This phenomenons consist on the migration of qualified professionals, usually from countries in development, that leaves their native nation and moves to places where they can find more stability, whether political, religious or financial, best quality of life and more opportunities of development their career. According to studies, the major factor that pulls health workers to leave their country are the poor work conditions.

The primary barrier for doctors who intend to migrate is the strick imigration polices, mostly for people of different continents. The process of gaining registration is considered a delaying factor for the employer, that can also make it harder for the worker to be hired. Another important factor is the language barrier in countries where the primary language is not english, spanish or french. And also, the cultural difference is an important reason that, not only make it harder, but also disencourage the migration of several populations. 

All of those factors contribute contribute to the choices when a health professional is planning to work abroad. The more the country follow the WHO Code and makes it easier to recieve forgneirs, the more doctors and nurses migrate. Concomitant to that, a reaserch has shown that the nations of choice for migration that most recieve health workers are Ireland, Australia, New Zeland, United States of America, Canada and United Kingdom.  

It is concluded that the migration of doctors is a groing trend that is contributes for the personal aggrandizement and can enhance the health system of the desire country, since the forgneir doctor can occupy vacancies and provide better health