Worldwide mobility of health professionals (MoHProf) is a growing phenomenon, impacting the health systems of receiving, transit, and sending countries. EU Member States are increasingly affected by these developments - which might occur simultaneously within the same country. Therefore, the need to develop European policies to adequately address these issues is urgent. At the same time, reliable and differentiated knowledge and findings as a basis for such policy are lacking.

Worldwide mobility of health professionals (MoHProf) is a growing phenomenon, impacting the health systems of receiving, transit, and sending countries. EU Member States are increasingly affected by these developments - which might occur simultaneously within the same country. Therefore, the need to develop European policies to adequately address these issues is urgent. At the same time, reliable and differentiated knowledge and findings as a basis for such policy are lacking.

Austria is a country of both emigration and immigration of health professionals. From one side, it has a significant stock of immigrants working in health care and it experiences increasing inflow of third country nationals to this sector, which could have been triggered with the opening of the Austrian labour market to new European Union (EU) Member States in 2011. It is estimated that about 6–16.5% of nursing personnel working in Austrian hospitals and about 14.5% of physicians are foreign born.

This national profile summarises the findings of research and interviews with key stakeholders from both government bodies involved with migrating health professionals and universities as well as interviews with migrant health professionals themselves.

The Equi-Health project was designed and managed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Regional Office Brussels, Migration Health Division (MHD) and co-financed under the 2012 Work Plan, within the Second Programme of Community Action in the Field of Health (2008–2013), by a direct grant awarded to IOM by the European Commission’s Directorate General (DG) for Health and Consumers (DG SANTE), through the Consumers, Health, and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA). 

Content:

The migration of health care workers is not a new phenomenon, but the issue has become of utmost importance in recent years due to the global shortage of health care workers. As populations age in industrialized countries, there has been a sharp rise in demand for health care workers. This demand acts as a pull factor in the migration of health care workers from developing countries with already struggling health care systems and insufficient human resources.

This study commissioned by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was conducted by the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) between February and May 2014 among Basotho health-care professionals working and living in the United Kingdom. The purpose of the survey was to map out the demographic and social characteristics of these health professionals, their migratory trajectories as well as their potential for contributing to the development of the health sector in Lesotho.

Human resources are critical in ensuring the delivery of quality health care services. The global shortage of health care workers is aggravated by an unequal distribution of human resources sustained by a steady flow of international, regional, or internal migration. Insufficient supply of health care workers is an increasing challenge not only in source countries, which suffer public health crises but also in receiving countries, facing demographic challenges due to ageing populations.

The United States of America is widely known as one of the major destinations for Nigerian migrants. Migration of Nigerians to this country has been increasing over time, and trends show that this is still continuing. The situation has created a huge opportunity to harness and maximize enormous potential resources of this group. 

Background: Human trafficking is a crime that commonly results in acute and chronic physical and psychological harm. To foster more informed health sector responses to human trafficking, training sessions for health care providers were developed and pilot-tested in the Middle East, Central America, and the Caribbean. This study presents the results of an investigation into what health care providers knew and needed to know about human trafficking as part of that training program.