International Nurse Migration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

International Nurse Migration - Essay Example According to the research findings migration of nurses has been based on either individual contacts and motivation or opportunity. Planned recruitment of nurses internationally has been taking place, in the past decade period, developed nations recruiting nurses from developing nations and other developed nations. Additionally, developing nations are recruiting nurses from each other, especially within similar regions geographically. As a result of this statistics recruited health professionals from countries represent over a quarter of the nursing workforces of The U.S, Canada, Australia and the U.K. The reasons for migration of nurses is as a result of pull or push factors. Pull factors are factors that attract the nurse in the direction of another country. This includes; quality of life perceived to be better, career development, personal security, learning opportunities and better pay. Push factors are circumstances that drive a nurse to leave their country to search for greener pastures elsewhere. They include inadequate remunerations, lack of standard work equipment or facilities, career development options lacking and political instability in their country. The consequences of the pull or push factors leading to migration of nurses to other countries has dealt a huge blow in their countries of origin. More common is the brain drain which is experienced by donor countries that is the loss of personnel that is skilled and also loss of development in education due to human resources that are limited migrating elsewhere. (Awases, 2003). Also, migration of nurses threatens health globally since recruitment and hiring of nurses in developing countries leads to a vacuum in developing nations thus health services in such countries are compromised. Moreover, International migration by nurses undermines the capacity of countries to deal with regional, national and global commitments and also their individual development. The Commonwealth Code of Practice for the R ecruitment of Health Workers Internationally has discouraged greatly health workers recruitment from nations that experience shortages, and also due to the above negative consequences of health workers recruitment. Aiken, et. al (2004) agree, basing their argument on the fact that developing nations require to come up with their own workforce of nurses that are able to cater for their countries needs and ensure that those nurses are well compensated, and that they experience good working environment. Despite all the above negative consequences, there is a positive impact on the recruitment of nurses internationally. This includes economic benefits in relation to income remittance generation. These remittances are estimated to contribute over $70 billion globally to world economies. According to Buchan (2001), the negative consequences of international migration of nurses on donor countries are starting to get acknowledged, but they have not yet been fully dealt with. A balance shoul d be maintained between the push factors driving nurses to migrate, and the utilitarian concern on health of donor countries due to loss of scarce nurses. The Commonwealth Code of Practice for the Recruitment of Health Workers Internationally (2003) believes that for such a balance to be possible there must be a mutual benefit. That is minimization of compromise of the donor country by the importer country making an effort to provide help in the form of technology, training