Minister of International Development to participate in working group on brain drain in the health sector

Minister of International Development Erik Solheim has accepted an invitation to participate in an international high-level working group, linked to the World Health Organization, that is to discuss the challenges raised by the international migration of health workers.

The group will be chaired by former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, who now heads the organisation Realizing Rights – The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Brain drain in the health sector is one of the most important issues the Health Worker Global Policy Advisory Group will consider.

“We need international rules to prevent aggressive recruitment. Norway does not want to drain poor countries of highly-qualified staff, as some believe. We also need a means of dealing with the fact that well-educated people from poor countries now actively seek work in the West instead of working in their home countries, where their expertise is sorely needed. This is due to a combination of the West’s need for workers and the enormous differences in salary and working conditions between rich and poor countries, and to the fact that at present there are no rules that address this issue,” said Mr Solheim.

Today, many freshly-qualified health workers from poor countries choose to work in the West. This impoverishes their countries’ health systems. The Minister of International Development believes that preventing this is a shared responsibility. When well-educated people choose to leave poor countries to meet rich countries’ need for workers, rich countries have a duty to make good the damage caused to poor countries, Mr Solheim believes.

“Norway wants to strengthen international cooperation on issues related to brain drain, migration of health workers and poverty. I am therefore looking forward to participating in this working group, which will try to find solutions to the problems that arise when nurses and doctors leave poor countries for better paid jobs in richer parts of the world,” continued Mr Solheim.

When Mary Robinson visited Oslo in February this year, she praised Norway for taking the problem of brain drain seriously, and for making cross-ministry efforts to find solutions. It was during her visit that she invited Mr Solheim to be part of the working group, whose other members include the Health Ministers of Ghana and Nigeria and the Minister of Labor and Employment of the Philippines.