The Global Health Care Chain

This book provides the first detailed analysis of the growing phenomenon of the international migration of skilled health workers and reveals its exceptional significance for both sending and receiving countries.

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For more than a quarter of a century there has been significant international migration of skilled health workers, but in the last decades, with critical changes in both sending and receiving countries, few parts of the world are now unaffected by the consequences of the migration of health workers, either as sources, destinations or sometimes both. The book takes the understanding of health worker migration substantially beyond the more scattered and fragmented papers and anecdotes that largely existed before, into the first consolidated analysis. In doing so it reveals its exceptional significance for both sending and receiving countries (in economic, social and political terms), provides the only analysis of remittances of health workers, casts new light on gender, globalisation, transnational linkages, the trade in services (linked to GATS) and the overall relationship between migration and development, and reviews practical responses and solutions.