Canada has dealt with its doctor
shortages by poaching physicians from third world countries,
according to a new report by Canadian Policy Research
Networks (CPRN). The authors say it's high time the
provinces put some rules in place to make sure their
methods of recruiting foreign-trained doctors, nurses
and other healthcare professionals are ethical.
Doctors are in demand pretty much
everywhere. As a result, they have the freedom to practise
wherever they please, and governments have had to get
creative with their recruitment strategies. Too few
medical school spaces and an ongoing physician exodus
to the US has meant Canada's governments have increasingly
turned to the developing world, particularly Africa
and Asia, for a quick fix. About 23% of GPs and a similar
percentage of the specialists who practise here are
foreign-trained, according to the report. Trouble is,
countries in those regions — which already face
numerous healthcare challenges — are experiencing
their own shortages as a result.
UNGENTLEMANLY
CONDUCT
Canada was first accused of pushing the ethical envelope
in 2001, when South Africa's High Commissioner to Canada
took us to task for enticing healthcare workers away
from the African nation, which was grappling with its
own severe doctor dearth at the time.
While we've always relied on internationally-educated
health professionals to some extent, the concern in
recent years has been that most foreign docs are now
emigrating from developing nations — places that
just can't compete.
The first step towards improving
our recruitment strategies, the authors write, is to
recognize that "it is inappropriate for nations as relatively
wealthy as Canada to solve its own domestic health human
resources problems of undersupply and maldistribution
by relying on the immigration of health professionals
from developing countries."
REALITY
CHECK
The CPRN's report, The Ethical Recruitment of Internationally
Educated Health Professionals: Lessons from Abroad and
Options for Canada looks at how other countries
have dealt with doctor shortages and lays out the steps
towards rehabilitating our morally wayward recruitment
techniques. For instance, Britain has banned the practice
of advertising for physicians in developing countries'
medical journals.
The key to longterm change, write
authors Tom McIntosh and Renee Torgerson of CPRN and
University of Regina's Nathan Klassen, is to establish
a set of guidelines for doctor recruitment that operate
within the current realities of our healthcare system.
After all, it is our own poorly thought-out domestic
policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
"The ethics of international recruitment," the authors
write, "have to be dealt with in the overall context
of domestic health human resource planning... any code
of conduct would be unworkable unless it is part of
a mix of policies to address the broader problems of
Canada's supply of health professionals."
To take a look at the CPRN's full
report, go to www.cprn.org/en/doc.cfm?doc=1611
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