ALT-2 Current Trends in Healthcare
The boom of the healthcare industry worldwide has brought about an increase in the demand for health professionals. Opportunities for doctors, nurses, physical therapists, pharmacists, care givers and the like have ballooned in a lot of countries. But the most sought-after among these professionals perhaps are the nurses.
The United States of America ranks as the number one employer of international nurses. It has so many hospitals, medical centers, and nursing facilities throughout the country that nursing services are in demand all-year round. Unfortunately, the US colleges and universities do not produce enough nurses to populate these health care institutions. Hence, these employers turn to other countries to recruit nurses to fill these vacancies.
The Middle East nations, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are perhaps the second largest employer of foreign nurses. Even Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel, and Jordan hire nurses from other countries today. The United Kingdom especially Great Britain and Ireland are also in demand of a great number of nurses every year. Other countries that regularly recruit foreign nurses are Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. European nations like Norway, Spain, and the Netherlands are also hiring foreign-trained nurses nowadays. Even Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia look abroad to augment their increasing need for nursing services.
So, as anyone can see, lots of countries throughout the world today have a significant void for nurses in their healthcare industry. What does this tell us then? It tells us that the demand and supply for nursing services is quite unbalanced in a lot of places around the world. That there are countries with a great number of healthcare facilities needing nurses; and yet, they lack these human resources. It tells us further that there ought to be countries that produce more nurses than they can accommodate; and that they should be willing to release their extra nurses to meet the needs of other countries.
Countries where nurses are highly in demand usually turn to third world countries to fill their nursing needs. Among these top nurse-producing countries are India and the Philippines. Puerto Rico and Mexico are also good sources of nurses for these foreign employers.
The Philippines, in response to this global need for nurses, has established hundreds of nursing schools nationwide. Now, the country boasts of thousands of nursing graduates annually. The medium of instruction used in schools is American English, and the curriculum is equivalent to that of the United States and other countries. The English Language requirements are easily met as Filipinos are exposed to the language since pre-school. Filipino nurses are caring, passionate, and willing to put in additional working hours as needed.
India also yields thousands of nurses every year. English is used widely in its colleges and universities. Hence, English tests are easily passed as well. As most other nurses from third world countries, Indian nurses are industrious, patient, and considerate.
As the healthcare industry in these third world countries is not as advanced and as extensive as that of the first world countries, there are not enough medical and nursing institutions to accommodate their annual flood of nurses. Thus, nurses are forced to seek employment in other fields such as sales, medical transcription, and recently, call centers. And every year, thousands of nurses leave their homeland to work abroad.
This global demand for nurses can be expected to rise steadily in the coming years. Due to population control adopted by several countries years ago, there is now an imbalance in their population wherein their elderly group is larger than their youth and young adults. With this trend more nursing homes have to be built to meet the needs of this retiring population. Hence, a higher demand for nurses in these countries is inevitable. Stiffer competitions among these nurse-employing countries would then result. They would need to reassess their need and align it with what they can realistically offer to foreign nurses to attract them to work in their countries.
Basically, third world country nurses are lured by higher compensation and career advancements offered by the US and other first world countries. At present, the US is the number one choice of international nurses as it gives the best employment package there is. Foreign nurses and their families are brought to the United States on Immigrant Visa status all expense paid by the sponsoring employer. This would only normally exclude plane tickets for the immediate family.
Countries which yield more nurses than they can employ ought to take these greater opportunities to bank on their nurses. As the demand gets high, so should the supply, to keep the global nursing field even. Thus, competition among these nurse-producing countries intensifies as well. They should maximize their drives in producing highly qualified nurses. In so doing, they will be able to carve a significantly comfortable niche in the ever-expanding global nursing field.
