4.Q. Scientific session: Global landscapes of healthcare worker migration: advancing effective and equitable solutions
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA-HCW, WHO/Europe, Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), WHO Collaborating Center for Health Workforce Policies and Planning,   Chair persons: Ellen Kuhlmann (EUPHA-HCW), Marius-IonuțUngureanu (Romania)
Published: October 2024

Background

Healthcare workforce migration not only increased in numbers, the mobility flows and migration patterns are also changing and becoming more diverse. The labour market push-and-pull factors and related risks of ‘brain-drain’ are still relevant and many countries, especially in the western world, heavily rely on foreign-born and foreign-trained healthcare workers to mitigate shortages and respond to the healthcare workforce crisis. However, this migration pattern increasingly co-exists with other patterns, blurring the categories of hosting and sending countries. For instance, some low- and middle-income countries have created the export of skilled healthcare workers as business model, others invest in healthcare worker education without advancing national labour market capacities. There is also an increase in crisis migration caused by wars, climate change, and other conflicts, yet these refugee healthcare workers are often excluded from the formal labour market. These examples illustrate that health policy across countries largely failed to respond to the changing global landscapes of migration and to govern education, recruitment and retention more effectively. The healthcare workforce debate is primarily driven by health labour market needs, while health policy and human rights remain marginal. There is also a lack of comprehensive data and research, that would allow for evidence-based decision-making. Ineffective policy and existing governance gaps exacerbate the global healthcare workforce crisis, increase stress and workload of the healthcare workers, and often ignore worker and human rights.

Objectives

This workshop looks beyond labour market push-pull factors and highlights the complexity of healthcare worker migration. It makes the diverse needs, stakeholder interests, and institutional frameworks visible that shape mobility patterns of healthcare worker, seeking to identify capacity for more effective governance and good-practice examples. The following major questions will be discussed, among others: What data and research are needed to better understand the global migration landscapes? What can we learn from cross-country knowledge exchange and good practice experiences? How can public health advance more equitable and effective education, recruitment and retention policy, and what role could global contracts and international organisations play? The interactive discussion will be facilitated by a commentary on global capacity building for equitable healthcare worker migration and the action taken by WHO. The presenters and the audience will advance knowledge exchange and critically explore novel solutions to the healthcare workforce crisis that are more sensitive to the needs of both individual migrant healthcare workers and less well-resourced countries, in the global South as well as within Europe.

Key messages

• Increasingly divers patterns of healthcare worker migration call for novel governance approaches that align labour markets, health policy needs, and human rights.

• More effective, equitable and ‘humanised’ governance of healthcare worker migration needs a global public health and human rights approach.