The Brain Drain

Human Resource Issue Many developing countries do not have enough healthcare personnel to operate a healthsystem effectively. In addition, the quality of training, knowledge, and skills of healthcare staff is deficient. Salaries provided by the public sector is not enough, and as a result, many workers lack incentive to perform their jobs efficiently, practice in the private sector, and are absent from work. These working conditions and lack of adequate salaries motivate healthcare personnel (usually the most skilled) to move to higher-income countries. These high-income countries do not produce enough nurses and/or physicians, and they make up for the shortages through recruitment from other countries. This creates the Brain Drain problem in the healthcare system of developing countries. Brain drain refers to the "emigration of highly trained or intelligent people from a particular country".

Source: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-brain-drain-game-why-everybody-loses This scholarly article from 2009 summarizes the worldwide shortage of healthcare workers and the disproportionate concentration of health workers in high-income nations and urban areas. The migration of health professionals from their home lands is a huge barrier in achieving key public health goals in their respective countries. Link: http://www.ijgo.org/article/S0020-7292(09)00156-8/fulltext