Towards a Sustainable Nursing Workforce

Abstract

The International Migration of health human resources (HHR) from developing nations to newline developed nations has emerged as one of the most debated issues in the last two decades. The newline long-standing reliance of developed nations on internationally educated nurses to deal with newline domestic shortages has raised several concerns about the ethicality and sustainability of such newline practices. Migration offers some benefits to source countries, however, in the long run, the newline damages that occurred to the healthcare systems by the mass migration of nurses outweigh newline these benefits, hampering the growth of developing economies. newline To address the health human resources shortage and to mitigate the adverse effects of health newline HHR migration from shortage countries to developed countries. World Health Organization newline (WHO) introduced a global code of the international recruitment for health personnel in 2010 newline and the same was adopted by WHO member states. It is a voluntary code of practice and aims newline to serve as a guideline for the recruitment of international HHRs. newline India, being the second largest exporter of nurses, has the most severe implications pertaining newline to the nursing brain drain. The study is an attempt to understand the impact of the good in India newline in the specific context of the nursing profession. The study uses a comparatively new method newline of impact evaluation known as contribution analysis introduced by John Mayne in 1999. newline Contribution analysis is a theory-driven performance measurement framework. The study newline develops a theory of the change of the code and uses primary and secondary data sources to newline assess the performance and contribution of the code in India. By using a seven-step framework newline of contribution analysis the study concluded that while the code of practice by WHO has newline brought a moderate change in recruitment behaviour of nations, it still has to realise its full newline potential in resource-poor countries. The study also concluded the impact of the code in India newline is low and it has not been fully implemented or disseminated in India. The code, as intended, newline did not contribute to the creation of a sustainable nursing workforce in India. newline The study is limited by its focus on the nursing profession and does not include other healthcare newline professions for the analysis. Additionally, the study also lacks the input of key stakeholders. newline Notwithstanding the limitations, the study identifies the area where support and formal policy newline formulation is required to establish safe and ethical practices as well as evaluate the current newline international law s effectiveness from a source country perspective. newline