Public Eye: Brain Drain
Fri, November 25 2005
Thousands of doctors and nurses, lured by higher salaries and better working conditions, are leaving the Phippines each year, leaving a medical vacuum in their wake.
This “brain drain“ is not unique to the Phippines. As mnay as three-quarters of physicians who come to rich countries hail from less developed nations grappling with infectious diseases, AIDS and other health scourges.
“The brain drain has weakened the physician work forces of many poor nations,” said Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, a professor of medicine and health policy at George Washington University.
The Asian Pacific Post asked members of the BC Filipino community for their views on this issue:
A former nurse's aide who retired from the UBC Hospital in 1999
Filipino doctors and nurses continue to leave because most of them want to help their families. Life is hard in the Philippines. It has a bad effect on our countrymen but these people just want to have a better life. We can‘t blame them.
A UBC-trained nurse
It‘s no longer a brain drain but a brain haemorrhage. They are forced to migrate because of the worsening situation in the Philippines, including the increasing privatization of the public health system. But the sad thing for nurses is that once they arrive here in Canada, they suffer from brain waste because they are recruited as live-in caregivers or 24-hour slaves. This is unlike the situation in the 60‘s and 70‘s when jobs as nurses are waiting for them to take.
Community researcher
The reality is while they may be earning more compared to what theymake in the Philippines, nurses particularly are brought into countries like Canada as cheap labour, doing work Canadians don‘t want to do. But with the present direction of globalization, you cannot stop the flow of human resources from the South to the North. The Philippines may be rich in natural resources but the impact of globalization is such that it siphons off human resources from poor countries.
Executive Director of the Multicultural Helping House Society
There seems to be no shortage of people to train but there‘s not enough work to put in trained people so it‘s okay as far as the Philippine government is concerned to export talent. That‘s because these immigrants send back money in dollars and these remittances prop up the Philippine economy. So for the government, it‘s not too bad at all. But its tragic for immigrants-doctors, nurses, engineers, accountants and the like-because a number of them can‘t actually practice their professions here in Canada. They end up doing all sorts of survival jobs.
Immigrant Counsellor
In the case of rural doctors or those who work in the countryside, they come to realize that while they‘re committed to helping people, there would come a time when they would retire and they‘d be left with only a small pension. So when an opportunity comes for them to go out of the Philippines to work and earn more, they take it. We know of doctors studying again to become nurses so they can go to the United States. One of them even remarked: “We‘ve served the country, now it‘s time to work for our retirement.”
Caretaker
Filipino doctors and nurses leave for greener pastures. They don‘t earn much in the Philippines to make a decent living. Plus, the political and security situation there is very unstable. Of course, the public health system suffers because those who are opting to migrate include the best and the brightest.
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