Repercussions of shortage vs migration of nurses as a global phenomenon

Abstract

Health depends significantly on the capacity of quality and quantity of its human resources, especially from nursing staff because they are the milestone and platform to support the actions directed to fight the illness that cause poverty, and deteriorate the health. A global and growing phenomenon over all in developed countries is the growing shortage of nursing personnel; such phenomenon has taken relevance, in function to the repercussions that causes on the less developed countries which suffer the migration struggle of nurses toward countries that offer better work conditions. The case of the Philippines and the United States of America is the best example of how a country becomes a main supplier and the other as a receptor of human resources in nursing. In spite of consider the professional, personal and economical benefits of immigrant nurses and their position solving the shortage of personnel in the receptor countries, the migration of nurses generates deep consequences in the delivery and quality of the health systems in the supplier countries. In Mexico, migration of nurses is an incipient problem; however, it should not be rejected because the repercussions of this phenomenon are transcendental and can seriously affect the system of health and its institutions, and as a consequence, the quality of delivered services. The purpose of this article is to let decisions makers know the prior necessity to establish a program of labor, academic, and professional strengthening for Mexican nurses that contributes and support the retention of them and they take root in their institutions and in the country. It is necessary preventing and counting on alternatives to face up the serious lack of personnel struggles which already suffer the countries that did not have the sensibility to attend the nursing shortage problem. Especially, for the nursing personnel the pretension is giving the elements that allow taking an informed decision.