The migration of health care professionals from Hungary - global flows and local responses

Abstract

The migration of health care workers is a longstanding process which causes shortages in the sending countries. The Eastern enlargements of the European Union strengthened the East-West migration flows causing serious political controversies and jeopardising medical services. Hungary is also heavily affected by these processes and in the last 10 years; thousands of doctors and nurses left the country. Managing migration processes requires complex policy answers with the involvement of actors from various spatial scales -but most of the studies on medical migration from Hungary focuses on the national scale. To fill this research gap, this study aims to analyse local political responses to the outmigration through the content analysis health care development documents to reveal the role of local scale. On local scale individual needs and preferences, emotional factors can influence the decision on staying or moving. Therefore, local policies, which take local features into account and apply place-based approach, can be useful elements of (re)migration policies in the case of health care workers, too.

Why Do Hungarian Health Workers Migrate? A Micro-Level Analysis

“…First, we examine the migration of health professionals from a CEE perspective. Although there have already been several studies on the migration of health workers in CEE (e.g., [25][26][27]29,68]), the region shows several peculiarities. During the era of state socialism, there was essentially no shortage of health professionals in these countries, as the health systems here could develop in isolation from international processes and market mechanisms due to state paternalism.…”

Are We Facing a Radical Change in the Migration Behavior of Medical Graduates from Less Developed Countries? Demographic Profile vs. Social Push Factors

“…The practice of recent years has shown that this means mobility for employment and postgraduate training, starting from the residency period in more economically developed countries, with financial potential and/or adequate funding sources. From the perspective of the last two decades, we can appreciate that we are facing an exodus of specialists from healthcare units [ 16 , 17 ] with shortages of equipment and funding (from less developed countries), with already chronic imbalances in the employment of the medical sector [ 18 ], to medical units that offer the prospect of the future in excellence in health services, i.e., the smart association of technological transfer progress [ 19 ] with financial comfort through employment (so-called “decent employment”). Additionally, modern medicine has come to build a necessary balance between prevention and intervention as a form of efficiency for the quality of healthy life.…”

“…Students with a low level of income face difficulties in the migration process for studies. Most of the time, the expenses recorded in the countries of destination far exceed the level of those at home, and these expenses have a determining role in the migration decision [ 18 ]. For this reason, previously conducted studies [ 58 , 59 ] demonstrate the fact that wealthy students are more likely to migrate in order to continue their studies.…”