World Migration Report 2010

World Migration Report 2010 was released by International Organization for Migration on 29 November 2010. According to the World Migration Report, India topped the list of countries of origin of migrant doctors in OECD countries with over 56,000 Indian doctors in countries like UK, the US, Canada, and Australia. India is on the sixth place in the expatriation of nurses to OECD countries (about 23000).

The migration figures constitute just 8% and 3% respectively of the doctor and nurse population in India, which is low compared to some of the smaller countries severely affected by emigration of doctors such as Mozambique (75%) and Angola (70%).

The World Health Organisation stated that the number of physicians per 100000 populations for India is 70, which is at par with low-income countries .The poor working conditions in India coupled with low salary and the lack of respect at the work place are the top reasons for nurses migrating abroad. In the European Union, the figure is 310 physicians per 100000 population and in the US 240 physicians per 100000. The number of nurses per 100000 population in India is 80, while it is 330 for the world and 160 for low-income countries. The WHO threshold for a health workforce crisis is 230 health workers per 100,000 population.

Philippines is the main country of origin for nurses and over 110,000 Filipino nurses work in OECD countries, followed by the United Kingdom (just under 46000), Germany (under 32,000). According to the OECD data of 2007, the top five countries in terms of emigration rates of nurses are all from the Caribbean region— Haiti leads with an expatriation rate of 94%, followed by Jamaica (87.7%), Grenada (87.6%), St Vincent and the Grenadines (81.6%) and Guyana (81.1%).