Realizing Rights and Commonwealth working to meet the Challenges of Health Worker Migration

May 18th 2009

Developing countries are adversely affected by a 'Health Worker brain drain' The global health workforce shortage has been well identified, with those in low-income countries feeling its negative impact most keenly. Similarly the asymmetric migration of health workers from resource poor to resource rich nations, represents, at least in the short term, a development loss for resource-poor nations and a development gain for those resource-rich.

Significant concern has also arisen with regards to the conditions under which health workers are internationally recruited. Encouragingly, the last decade has seen significant movement towards mitigating the negative effects due to the international recruitment and migration of health workers. Commonwealth nations, and the Commonwealth Secretariat itself, have played a leading role in the development of ethical principles and the shaping of an international structure to more equitably manage the recruitment and migration of health workers.

Commonwealth Health Ministers meet annually in Geneva, Switzerland on the eve of the World Health Assembly (WHA) to discuss and agree on Commonwealth health priorities. As the largest intergovernmental grouping within the WHA, Commonwealth Health Ministers make a substantial contribution to defining and shaping global health priorities.

Realizing Rights and the Commonwealth Secretariat believe that Commonwealth Health Ministries are particularly well placed to reflect on the challenges associated with negotiating and implementing potential Codes of Practice. As such, on May 16th Realizing Rights co-convened, with the Commonweath Secretariat, a Roundtable Discussion on the issue of Health Worker Migration.

The objectives of the discussion were:

To engage and update Commonwealth Health Ministries on progress towards a Global Code of Practice
To discuss key unresolved issues area in ethical codes of practice and learn from ways in which they were addressed in the Commonwealth Code
To explore links and synergy between the Commonwealth Code of Practice and other potential codes
To learn from select countries on successes and challenges in strategies to address health worker migration

Health Worker Migration Initiative - August 2008

Brain Drain of Healthcare Workers - August 2008

Health systems, health and wealth: A human rights perspective - June 2008

Global Health Worker Shortage - August 2006