free movement of labour - stealing Africa's health workers
WORKERS, JULY 2005 ISSUE
The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing have confronted the G8 with a simple but profound demand. Never mind "pie-in-the-sky" debt cancellation — always supplanted by another "aid" package — nor fatuous claims to be making poverty history, the BMA and the RCN are calling for an end to the stealing the greatest wealth of any country or continent — its people.
The organisations have demanded an end to the importation of qualified nurses and doctors from the poorest countries in the world into the wealthiest and for Britain, the USA and others to establish training programmes at home to meet the needs of their own populace.
In the next 5 years, the USA intends to increase its number of doctors by 200,000 and its nursing workforce by 800,000 — most of these bought in at reduced rates from countries where HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and endemic diseases are legion. Denuding African countries of their precious health workers is tantamount to sentencing millions to death.