User’s Guide to the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel
Overview
Reaching the health-related Millennium Development Goals will be impossible
without strong and adequately staffed national health systems.
Nevertheless, 57 countries still experience critical shortages of appropriately
trained health personnel. One reason for these shortages is that health
personnel continue to leave their homes in search of better career opportunities
and living conditions elsewhere.
Sometimes this means leaving remote and
rural areas for urban ones. Sometimes it means travelling abroad. Indeed, the
numbers of migrating health personnel have significantly increased in recent
years and patterns of migration have become increasingly complicated and
involve more countries (see Box 1 below). While all countries can be affected
by the international and national migration of their health workforce, it is
particularly challenging for those with already fragile health systems.