TRI DUC ENGLISH - Nurse Migration TRI DUC ENGLISH Reading Practice: Nurse Migration There are more nurses today than at any time in history, yet a global nursing shortage threatens to cripple health care systems worldwide. Because the underlying causes are complex and vary in different regions, a simple, short-term fix will not remedy the situation. In developing nations—particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America—a major reason for the shortage is nurse migration to developed countries in Europe and North America as well as Australia to help fill vacancies there. Nurse migration is hardly a recent phenomenon. The Philippines have for years trained many more nurses than the country needs, with thousands working abroad and sending money to relatives back home (nearing $1 billion annually). From that standpoint, migration of nurses from poorer to wealthier countries would appear to benefit all involved. But there is another side to the story. Today, even the Philippines feels the effects of the nursing shortage, with nurses continuing to migrate abroad while positions at home go unfilled. Lured by the higher salaries and better quality of life available in wealthier countries, nurses from developing countries frequently leave behind already overburdened health care systems, where nurses are often the primary caregivers because doctors, too, are in short supply. Conditions then deteriorate further as the nurse-to-population ratio declines, a number that is estimated to be ten times higher in European than in African countries. Some Latin American countries are experiencing such a shortage of nurses that doctors actually outnumber them, leaving the bulk of health care up to assistant nurses, who have only rudimentary training. Routine immunizations and prenatal care fall victim to the nursing shortage in developing countries, and in many cases the results can be life threatening. In African countries where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is rampant, some patients go untreated not because lifesaving drugs are unavailable but because there are not enough nurses to administer them. In developed countries in Europe and North America, the nursing shortage largely stems from an aging population, who require more health care services, coupled with a dwindling supply of nurses, man...