3007OL Nursing in International Context: Nursing Migration Report

This report examines the multifaceted impact of nursing migration on international healthcare systems. It begins by outlining the factors influencing nurse migration, including push and pull factors such as low wages, limited opportunities, and better working conditions. The discussion then delves into the effects of migration on both source and recipient countries, highlighting the global nursing shortages and the challenges faced by immigrant nurses. The report addresses the impact on healthcare workforce distribution, the economic implications of remittances, and the ethical considerations of nurse recruitment. It explores the challenges faced by immigrant nurses, including cultural adaptation, language barriers, and discrimination. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for collaborative efforts from both source and recipient countries to address nursing shortages, improve working conditions, and ensure equitable healthcare outcomes. This analysis underscores the need for policy changes that promote nurse retention and foster a more sustainable global healthcare workforce.

Running Head: IMPACT OF NURSING MIGRATION ON INTERNATIONAL HEALTHCARE
IMPACT OF NURSING MIGRATION ON INTERNATIONAL HEALTHCARE
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Author Note:

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Introduction:
The research provided in the Global Health Study clearly confirms the causal correlation between
good health effects and the number of health care practitioners. The research illustrates the challenge in
meeting goals when significant shortages in staff are faced by health departments (Aluttis, Bishaw and
Frank, 2014). Countries with the greatest difficulties in achieving the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) face utter deficits in their health workers, severely restricting their ability to
react equitably even to critical health needs. Foreign recruiting and relocation of health care workers
impacting the availability of national workforce is also a significant topic in the policy agenda (Masselink
and Jones, 2014). Nursing is primarily defined as a mobile occupation. In search of better pay and
working conditions, job growth, professional development, better quality of life, personal safety, or
sometimes just news and excitement, thousands of nurses, including the vast majority of them women, are
expected to relocate. This essay discusses nurse migration flows in view of the imbalances in the national
nursing population, investigates conditions that promote or hinder nurse mobility, and addresses the
potential benefits of circular migration (Li, Nie and Li, 2014).
Discussion:
Factors influencing Nursing Migration:
Global nursing shortages (Walani, 2015) are not the sole determinant of why nurses enter the
process of migration and the underlying reasons are complicated. Nurses are pushed to migrate by their
countries of origin and pulled by the recipient countries. The recipient countries 'conditions reflect a pull
factor as they draw and promote nurses' movement towards that country. Under-standard conditions or
circumstances in the home (source) country encourage nurses to leave their country or workplace, and
thus represent the push factors. The existence of positions, educational or career growth prospects (Ramji
and Etowa, 2014), personal progress, appreciation of clinical skills, a supportive work climate, responsive

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workplace policy, secure socio-political conditions, quality of life, competitive salaries and social and
retirement benefits are some of the pull factors enticing nurses to the applicant. The International Center
on Nurse Migration indicated that the primary triggers of migration ('push' factors) derive from a need for
more resources for career advancement, a demand for better pay rewards and, in certain situations, a need
for personal protection due to political instability. The following trigger factors lead to nurse migration in
the source country: low wage pay, limited job prospects, limited educational opportunities, lack of
productive working facilities, insecure and/or unsafe working environments, lack of social and/or
retirement security, an unsatisfactory or dysfunctional political climate, and HIV / AIDS prevalence. It is
a mixture of both the push and pulls forces that cause the exodus of foreign nurses. Nurses from
developing countries with reduced levels of pay (push factor) would be drawn to wealthier countries with
better salaries and larger opportunities for workers (pull factors). In addition, recipient nation enticing
recruiting approaches increase pulling power.
Impact of Nursing Migration on International Healthcare system:
Currently, the number of foreign-educated doctors employed in Australia, Canada, the United
Kingdom, and the United States is estimated to be between 21 and 33 percent, whereas foreign-educated
nurses constitute 5–10 percent of the nursing population in these nations. New Zealand estimates that it
has recruited 21 per cent of its nurses overseas, a substantial improvement in the past decade. Thirty
percent of working registered nurses in Switzerland are internationally trained and 70 percent of new
hires in at least one university hospital are from overseas. Global nurse movement (Goh and Lopez, 2016)
has historically proven to be a North – North or South – South trend, e.g., Irish nurses working in the UK,
Canadian nurses serving in the United States, Fijian nurses commuting to Palau. However, the fast growth
in international recruitment from developing countries to industrialized countries has in recent years
gained the most media and political attention. There is a global nursing shortage at the moment;
developed countries are experiencing a lack of nursing staff, with almost all countries dependent on
nurses from overseas to alleviate the problem. Nurses are one of the health-care workforce's main

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industries and migration has impacted both countries of origin and destination. Many countries are
struggling to achieve a sufficient supply and demand for nurses owing to the ever-changing needs for jobs
in health care and rivalry for recruiting of potential workers. The origin of nurse migration usually travels
from unindustrialized countries to developing ones. With the movement of nurses the remittance to the
countries of origin is growing. However, unfortunately, half of the revenue is not reinvested in the
healthcare sector. While overseas nurses return huge amounts of funds to their home countries, the lack of
professional nurses could not be accounted for. Nurses moving from developing countries to
industrialized countries frequently leave behind a poor health-care network. Such nurses come from
developing nations and trigger a destructive loop in the health care system. Unwanted terms of
employment and inadequate pay drive health care worker recruitment to more industrialized countries.
The workload rises significantly among all nurses left in the public sector, working practices deteriorate
and the amount of tension nursing encounter is increased. There is a transfer in qualified nurses to
developing countries with the movement in patients leaving behind a talent drain in the world and even
fewer professional patients to provide healthcare. To order to strengthen the healthcare environment, the
regulatory authority or decision leaders ought to bring to motion legislation that resolve these problems in
order to prevent the adverse impact on the healthcare sector and, in essence, better provide these services
better their customers. Migration has also heightened the difficulties of hiring and maintaining health
practitioners. It has been observed that shortages increase the workload and therefore burnout for those
health workers who stay in the region. There is also a lack of materials required in developed countries to
provide affordable healthcare for the wider public access services at these hospitals. Multi-sectoral
cooperation is expected to strengthen the health-care system.
Effects of migration on the nurse immigrants:
The most important and substantial advantage to nurses from migration is the enhanced financial
condition for the nurse and his / her relatives. In the overwhelming number of migrant patients, the main
element affecting their choice is undoubtedly the financial factors (Kingma, 2018). A number of nurses

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worldwide are unfairly paid, particularly in developed nations. While the compensation of nurses in
developing countries is not favorable, the funding is significant and important for developed world
nurses. On average, developing-country nurses pay 10 to 20 times more than they can receive in their
home countries. Through this rise in salaries, nurses will submit money back to their homelands and
better their families 'lives. Although the improved pay is a huge advantage for migrant nurses, there are
also many adverse encounters these nurses face in the receiving countries as well. Firstly, there is also a
phase of transition that may prove daunting to the new job climate. Most nurses had to leave their family
behind to operate in the new country and without the social network; it's hard to survive in an foreign
location. Past study has found that foreign-trained nurses in a developing nation have trouble adapting to
a new job climate. Language and cultural gaps are sometimes identified as causes of difficulty for migrant
nurses. Due to the presence of a dialect, foreign nurses often have language difficulties, even if their
mother tongue is the same as the receiving country's. Adapting to a stringent collection of job
requirements in the receiving nation can also present a problem for this nursing community. Strong
cultural variations may make assimilation into the recipient nation, too, challenging. A Korean-trained
nurse, for example, compared Korea and the United States cultures to oil and water; the cultural
similarities rendered it challenging for her to transition to a foreign climate.
Challenges faced by Immigrant nurses:
Immigrant nurses also experience difficulties (Pung and Goh, 2017) in establishing working
partnerships in a health-care system with the host nurses. When immigrant nurses are able to develop a
strong partnership with their employers, the nurses are encouraged to continue with their jobs, and the
health and standard of treatment are improved. Alternatively, compromised interactions in the workforce
create a feeling of dissatisfaction with the job. Some nurses recorded feelings of alienation, loneliness,
trouble dealing, disappointment, uncertainty and lack of self-confidence and self-esteem throughout the
period of adjustment. Many immigrants in nursing care recover from their family's emotional loss. Long-
term regional isolation from their families causes nurses to feel uncertain about their relationships, and to

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feel bad about the missed relational bond with their babies. Discrimination in nurse relocation is a critical
ethical problem. Migrant nurses are frequently discriminated against because of improperly enforced fair
opportunities laws and systemic double standards. Such nurses are classified unequally due to differences
of ethnicity and sex, which is a flagrant breach of human rights. While working the same hours and the
same amount of shifts, migrant nurses get less pay than nurses born in the receiving region. In
comparison, nurses from industrialized nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, or
Australia earned higher wages than nurses coming from the Philippines, China, or India (Thompson and
Walton-Roberts, 2019). Furthermore, immigrant nurses are frequently limited to entry-level jobs,
providing primarily less favorable patient care or employment, and may be removed from job openings
that may contribute to upward career progression. The unfair ability prohibits nurses from receiving more
qualifications and administrative or promotion opportunities. Migrant nurses can often experience bigotry
by the patients themselves, who, owing to their race or religion, may deny care from a nurse.
Conclusion:
The healthcare shortage and recruiting of nurses from overseas has been a contentious problem
for years. Realistically, the issue of foreign relocation of nurses won't be addressed easily. Nursing
relocation will not be viewed by receiving countries as a permanent or long-term response to their nursing
shortages. From our own study of the global trend of nursing relocation, we infer that the movement of
individual nurses did not exacerbate the global nursing crisis. Instead, the shortfall is embedded in the
recipient countries 'faulty national health-care systems and economic and political capabilities (Roman
and Goschin, 2014). To address the current problem of nursing migration, all receiver and source
countries need to make efforts in a constructive way to further steer nursing migration. The task of
maintaining sufficient numbers of nurses in health care services around the globe will only be addressed
where meaningful attention is focused on problems of retention — equal opportunities wage rates and
significant improvements in working conditions in the health sector. The retention issues would tend to

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hinder teaching and recruiting attempts before they are resolved. Injecting foreign nurses into fragmented
health services are the ones unwilling to recruit and maintain domestic-educated workers and unable to
satisfy the increasing health needs of national populations.

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