Rich nations poach nurses amid crisis

A global shortage of healthcare workers is setting off a bruising worldwide battle for talent, as rich countries raid other nations' medical systems for staff to care for their aging populations.

- Stuart Condie, Gabriele Steinhauser

The competition has helped countries such as the U.S. and Australia replace some nurses who quit in record numbers during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it is also leaving hospitals in developing countries and some wealthier nations such as the U.K. worse off, as they lose staff to countries offering bigger paychecks.

Australia has been one of the most aggressive poachers, with offers of special bonuses and fast-tracked visas. An Australian advertising campaign in the British Isles this past winter featured workers with sunshine streaming through windows behind them. The campaign coincided with British nurses going on strike over pay, long hours and other concerns.

"You can surf in the early mornings, go fly fishing on weekends, take photography classes, write novels, or sell preserves at the farmers' markets," stated an ad in the British Medical Journal, an industry magazine, for an emergency-medicine registrar job.

The health department in Australia's Tasmania state, which placed the ad, said that like other local authorities it is looking to many countries including the U.K. for overseas workers.

The battle is part of a global resurgence in migration that is reshaping the world economy this year. As borders have reopened since the worst of the pandemic, countries have been welcoming foreign workers in selected industries to address labor shortfalls, helping push migration to record levels.

Douglas Chikobvu, a nurse at Gweru Provincial Hospital in Zimbabwe, said he has watched about a dozen nurses from his surgical ward move to take jobs abroad in recent years.

Chikobvu, who is secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Professional Nurses Union, said that in some hospitals one nurse sometimes ends up looking after 25 or 30 patients during a shift, instead of a more reasonable level of 10. Doctors are being forced to cancel procedures because they don't have enough staff.