How The West Drains Good Doctors From Developing Nations Like India

Every year, India produces thousands of doctors and healthcare professionals who survive brutal exams and heavy financial investments to reach their goals. Despite that, we often find most of these doctors healing patients across the globe, working in countries like the UK, the US, and Canada.

This is the result of the brain drain of our most talented doctors to Western countries, driven by opportunities and incentives. While this might seem like a usual occurrence, the consequences for developing nations are very severe. And for countries like India, the impacts are far from harmless.

Why do Developing Countries Fall For This?

Most often, under the disguise of better pay and higher incentives, the West lures healthcare professionals who have been trained outside its borders to work for it. For most of these doctors, moving abroad provides them with better facilities and standards of living than their home countries fail to provide.

As per the International Migration Outlook 2025, released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), India is the largest source of migrant doctors and the second largest on the list of migrant nurses serving in OECD countries. The report states that 98,857 doctors and 122,400 nurses born in India were employed in OECD member nations in 2020-2021.

What is more shocking is the pace at which this migration has increased. Between 2000 to 2021, these numbers rose by 76 per cent and 435 per cent, respectively. The report further highlights that these countries have reportedly housed about 8,30,000 doctors and 1.75 million nurses who were trained in their home countries.

This makes Asia the largest source, contributing 40 per cent of doctors and 37 per cent of nurses.

These numbers highlight not just the migration but also how intense the dependence of Western countries on developing nations really is. While this might seem helpful to the West, home countries like India often experience a shortage of healthcare professionals.

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The Strain This Leaves On Home Countries

This leaves the rural and weakly developed regions of the countries to struggle under the weight of insufficient medical facilities and a lack of doctors to tend to them.

The growing number of foreign-trained medical staff, as compared to those trained domestically, creates a wide inequality. This migration causes the receiving countries to reap the benefits of the hard work of foreign doctors.

As the OECD nations can staff their medical forces at a relatively low cost from developing countries, it leaves the developing nations plagued with a weakened healthcare system that is not backed by the force of doctors that it actually requires.

Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of WHO and Europe’s Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, explains, “This is not just about numbers. Behind every migrating doctor or nurse is a story of ambition and opportunity, but also, often, of strain on families and on the national health systems they left behind.”

Natasha further adds, “Health worker migration is a reality in our interconnected and globalized world, and we have the solutions to ensure it works for all parties. Countries can learn from each other’s experiences.”

This suggests that the problem doesn’t lie in the mobility of healthcare professionals but in the lack of a proper system that makes sure that both countries benefit from the exchange.

This is particularly important for countries with a large population, like India, whose population relies vastly on public hospitals, and the shortage of trained doctors creates a problem that could cost lives.

Adding to this, Natasha suggests, “If we fail to support the movement of health workers fairly, we risk widening health inequities and leaving already fragile health systems unable to cope.” This clearly shows that the idea of global exchange of doctors and nurses needs to be executed with proper planning, such that the developing countries aren’t left wailing in pain of a weakening system.

The brain drain of doctors into Western countries is seen as an opportunity for professional growth. While such mobility is important for growth and development, it also brings huge gaps in equality in the global health setup. Developing countries like India continue to invest heavily in training medical professionals, only to see the benefits of that investment flow down to other nations. 

How Home Countries Can Tackle This 

Addressing the brain drain of healthcare professionals doesn’t mean restricting global opportunities for them; rather, it involves long-term planning instead of accusing the system.

The solution doesn’t lie in stopping doctors and other healthcare staff from migrating abroad, but in making conditions and incentives good enough to make them stay. 

The following are a few ways home countries can reduce brain drain and its adverse impacts on the healthcare sector: 

1. Providing better opportunities to our doctors: Most doctors migrate to the West seeking opportunities that their home countries fail to provide. 
2. Better education and job security: Developing countries already train the best doctors and nurses; providing them with job security and other incentives will drive these professionals to serve at home. 
3. Creating space for international hiring: One way to undo the harm caused by the already lost professionals could be recruiting international doctors and staff ourselves. This will help fill the gap caused by brain drain to other countries. 
4. Improving the infrastructure and standard of living: By improving the infrastructure and standard of living, home countries can discourage migration. 
5. Using modern technologies in the health sector: Using obsolete technology often motivates doctors to migrate to the West. Therefore, the government needs to invest in better technology.  

Ultimately, reversing brain drain is about balance. Promoting global opportunities without hollowing out the healthcare scenario in the home countries is necessary. For a country like India to flourish, such migration must be fairly planned for the benefit of all; otherwise, it could lead to crippling the healthcare of a nation that is home to millions.

Images: Google Images

Sources: Firstpost, Times of India, OECD

Find the blogger: @shubhangichoudhary_29

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