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Non-EU migrant doctors in Ireland: applying a typology of health worker migration
BMC Health Services Research volume 14, Article number: O21 (2014)
Background
Research on health worker migration in the Irish context has previously sought to categorize migrant health workers by country or region of training (e.g. non-EU nurses or doctors), by migration channel or mechanism (e.g. actively recruited nurses). This paper applies a recently developed typology of health worker migration [1], to the experiences of non-EU migrant doctors in Ireland and considers the value of a typology of health worker migration to human resource management internationally.
Materials and methods
The paper draws on quantitative (N=37) and qualitative (N=337) data collected from non-EU migrant doctors in Ireland between 2011 and 2013.
Results
While non-EU migrant doctors can be categorized according to the typology [1], in the Irish context, a cross-cutting theme of frustration emerged from doctors in almost all categories. In addition to ‘career oriented migrants’ expressing frustration at poor career progression, were ‘returners’ who could not return home because of their limited career progression in Ireland and ‘livelihood migrants’ frustrated with weak career progression.
Conclusions
Employing a typology of health worker migration can facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the migrant medical workforce, a necessary prerequisite for the development of useful policy tools [2]. However, our findings suggest that migrant health workers cannot be divorced from the health system context in which they work in the destination country, and perhaps this should be incorporated into the typology.
References
Glinos I, Buchan J: Health Professionals crossing the European Union’s internal and external borders: A typology of health professional mobility and migration. Health Professional Mobility in a Changing Europe - New dynamics, mobile individuals and diverse responses. Edited by: Buchan J, et al. 2014, WHO & European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Glinos I, et al: Health Professional Mobility and Health Systems in Europe: Conclusions from the Case Studies. Health Professional Mobility and Health Systems Evidence from 17 European Countries. Edited by: Wismar W, et al. 2011, World Health Organisation & European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Health Research Board for funding the Doctor Migration Project (RCSI & TCD) HRA_HSR/2010/18.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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Humphries, N., McAleese, S., Tyrrell, E. et al. Non-EU migrant doctors in Ireland: applying a typology of health worker migration. BMC Health Serv Res 14 (Suppl 2), O21 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-S2-O21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-S2-O21
Keywords
- Public Health
- Health System
- Resource Management
- Human Resource
- Comprehensive Understanding