8.N. Round table: Circular migration of the health and care workforce: how can we design sustainable policies?
Authors:   Organised by: Department of Public Health, Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), EUPHA-HWR,   Chair persons: Marius-Ionut Ungureanu (Romania), Ellen Kuhlmann (EUPHA-HWR)
Published: October 2023

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated mobility-related challenges, leading to a health workforce which is oftentimes exhausted - physically and mentally. Various global responses - such as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030 - include policies related to migration and emigration among the package of measures aimed at maintaining the pool of qualified health professionals. For post-pandemic national health systems worldwide, the need to innovate on attracting, retaining and motivating health professionals is more acute than ever. As such, our session stemmed from the observation that little evidence exists on the extent to which circular migration would work in practice. Circular migration - the situation in which health professionals are using their knowledge and skills gained abroad, in their home country - has been presented as a particularly effective, equity-promoting measure to mitigate HWF migration. In theory, circular migration would present a so-called “triple win” - for the sending country, for the destination country and for the individual health workers. However, among all mechanisms aimed at HWF retention and motivation - including financial and non-financial incentives, skill mix innovations etc. - circular migration seems to be the least field-tested.

Objectives

Learning objective 1: Appraise the value of circular migration as a mechanism to address HWF mobility challenges, based on research data;

Learning objective 2: Assess critically the role of multi-stakeholder approaches that would make circular migration more effective in practice;

Learning objective 3: Formulate areas of further enquiry that promote shared learning on circular migration globally.

By engaging outstanding professionals in the health workforce field, the session will provide scientifically-sound and geographically diverse perspectives on how to best use circular migration in health systems, thus filling the knowledge gaps mentioned above. The session will allow for a panel discussion based on four presentations delivered by the invited speakers, based on a health labour market approach. Their contributions will focus on a mix of evidence & practice and policy related to circular migration. The above-mentioned presentations and the subsequent discussion initiated will add to the very limited knowledge on circular migration in practice. With this session, we are advancing work that pays greater attention to the “human face” of health workforce mobility and migration, addressing the needs and wishes of healthcare workers and ‘humanising’ health labour market policy and research. We address gender-based inequalities and discrimination in the health workforce and consider the intersectionality of inequalities (gender, race/ethnicity, age, class/professional status) in the migrant health workforce, where women often experience a ‘double jeopardy’ of gender and race/ethnicity.

Key messages

• Health and care workforce circular migration must be understood and accepted in a manner that take into account current complex migration patterns.

• Policies involving circular migration of the health and care workforce need to be designed and assessed by promoting an understanding of the human face of the workforce.

Speakers/Panelists

Tomas Zapata

WHO/Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark

Gareth Rees

Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru

Aaron Poppleton

School of Medicine, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK

Ligia Paina

Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA

Ellen Kuhlmann

University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany