[afro-nets] The international brokering of health care professionals

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Care trade: The international brokering of health care profes-
sionals
--------------------------------------------------------------
 From the book: "Merchants of Labour"

Editor Christiane Kuptsch
International Labour Organization, International Institute for
Labour Studies, Geneva, 2006; ISBN: 92-9014-780-6

Adobe PDF file (271 pp. 1.0 MB):
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/merchants.pdf

Care trade: The international brokering of health care profes-
sionals - Page 223

Susan Maybud, Health Services Specialist, Sectoral Activities
Department, ILO and Christiane Wiskow, Director and Research
Consultant, Salumondi, Health Personnel and International Public
Health, Geneva, Switzerland

"...The appealing, modern websites of the private agencies spe-
cializing in the recruitment of health care professionals for
Western markets invite the loggers-on to explore a myriad of op-
portunities. Go ahead, they entice, just click on this website
and you are one step closer to a better life. They advertise
hundreds of fabulous hospital and health care nursing jobs in
exciting places, and claim that they can make all the difference
to health care careers. And it is so easy. Potential candidates
just have to register, and they will be helped all along the
way. Examination requirements will be demystified, job inter-
views will be arranged, and visas and permits will be handled.
So fierce is the competition to secure scarce health care pro-
fessionals that private recruitment agencies stage promotional
events and aggressive recruitment campaigns in supplying coun-
tries, tripping over each other to attract suitable candidates.

How did the shortages of health care professionals become so
acute, and how did international migration come to be viewed as
one of the solutions to the problem? What is the role played by
private recruitment agencies in the flows of international mi-
gration?

How have they assumed their responsibilities towards individual
migrant health care workers?..."