Managing the International Migration of Health Workers: The Development of the WHO Code of Practice

Abstract

In the context of a global shortage of health workers, policy-makers have become aware of the international migration of health personnel and the consequences of their recruitment for their countries of origin. In May 2010, the World Health Assembly, as the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation, adopted a non-binding Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel that embodies a new global script for the migration of health workers. This article aims, first, to understand how the phenomenon of health worker migration has established itself as an issue that, countries and their governments feel compelled to address. It is argued that the emergence of this issue is a result of new ideologies in the fields of both international health and international migration. The main observation here is about the growing importance of a discourse that asks for the interests of non-citizens to be taken into consideration; this appeal is based primarily on the recognition that national health systems are interconnected. Second, this article concentrates on the situation in Switzerland in order to understand how the particular views promoted on the international scene actually affect and translate into national policies.