Ethical challenges and nursing recruitment during COVID-19

Abstract

The United Nations Global Compact for Migration 1 touted optimism for a more secure international migration of persons which would strengthen the development of health systems in low-and middleincome countries. The menacing COVID-19 pandemic caused dramatic setbacks in exertions to make migration safer also for health professionals. Advanced countries that heavily relied on international nursing mobility have witnessed a huge reduction in nursing flows during the pandemic. However, they will probably continue relying, in significant measure, on international inflow of nurses as they did pre-COVID-19. This buttresses the strong need to have healthcare policies for the ethical recruitment of nurses. Policies for ethical international employment need to account for the multiple perspectives of the involved parties. From a top-down perspective, nations have a responsibility to ensure health and wellbeing in their populations with an adequate nursing workforce. High-wealth nations are an attractive destination for economic migrants and domestic nurse supply issues could lead to an increase in international recruitment as national policy interventions. For example, the National Health Service (NHS) in England has recently announced funding of £28 million for accelerating international recruitment. 2 Nevertheless, the world is suffering a global shortage of nurses, estimated at 5.9 million, unevenly distributed between developed and developing countries. 3 If high-income countries are to use their economic influence to satisfy nursing workforce demand through international recruitment, it must therefore be done in such a way as to minimize harms to the global health community to be considered ethical. There have been attempts to codify this idea. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has recently issued a Position Statement on International Career Mobility and Ethical Nurse Recruitment. 4 This document recognizes that source countries are providing (and losing) something of value to destination countries and high-income destination countries might be well placed to provide compensation, financially or through technical expertise and training in the source countries. Notably, the ICN expresses concern that reliance on international recruitment may delay effective domestic policy solutions to nursing workforce supply, asking that countries develop robust, evidence-based plans to meet their own needs. In this framework, the COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of sustainable domestic supply, with international travel restricted at exactly the time of increased demand for nursing labour. 5

Enhancing Nurse Leadership Engagement Through Formalized Orientation Programs

“…17 Before the pandemic, the World Health Organization reported a global nursing shortage of approximately 5.9 million nurses, indicating that a general shortage of nurses will contribute to a shortage of nursing leaders. 18,19 The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on nurse leaders as well as clinical nurses. 20 A cross-sectional study in Australia identified that 75% of nurse leaders had high levels of stress and anxiety related to the pandemic, and 41% of those surveyed had identified an intent to leave the workforce.…”

Professionalism of Nurses Performing Humanitarian Duties During a Pandemic

“…Pengalaman merupakan guru yang baik yang menjadi sumber pengetahuan dan juga merupakan suatu cara untuk memperoleh kebenaran pengetahuan. Pengalaman adalah peristiwa yang benar-benar pernah dialami (Notoatmodjo, 2014) Analisis data menggunakan pendekatan yang didasarkan pada teori (Creswell, 2014) (Stievano, Bakhshi, Shaffer, & Hamilton, 2021). Oleh karena itu, rumah sakit-rumah sakit berupaya memenuhi kebutuhan pelayanan dengan cara merekrut relawan, bahkan tidak hanya relawan medis tetapi relawan nonmedis (Fathimah & Nulhaqim, 2020).…”

The UK National Health Service's migration infrastructure in times of Brexit and COVID‐19: Disjunctures, continuities and innovations

“…There have been long‐standing criticisms in relation to nurses' recruitment from developing countries, which are blamed for skills and ‘brain drain’ (Kingma, 2006 ) and accused of being a legacy of British imperialism (Spiliopoulos & Timmons, 2022 ). In response, international and national ethical codes of practice for recruiting foreign nurses designed to balance the demand of labour, choices of professionals and the needs of developing countries were established: nurse migration was conceived of as a temporary professional experience which could benefit developing countries in the long‐term (Stievano et al, 2021 ). Although blamed for exploitative practices such as high fees and intrusive controls over migrant lives, labour market intermediaries were able to maintain their function globally as gatekeepers (Calenda & Bellini, 2021 ).…”