Law, Healthcare Migration, and the Maintenance of International Health Disparities
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Dr Priyasha Saksena will be speaking on how The Covid-19 pandemic laid bare the critical shortage of healthcare workers across the world. In many developed countries, workforce shortages are plugged by immigrant healthcare workers, recruited largely from the global south. The permanent emigration of trained healthcare workers may, however, have a potentially serious impact on the ability of countries to manage the health of their populations. The "problem" of healthcare worker migration is therefore often framed as one around the right to health versus the right of individual healthcare workers to move across borders. At the international level, stakeholders have attempted to balance these rights through the adoption of voluntary instruments such as the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Heath Personnel. Although an ethical perspective is necessary to understand the often-iniquitous nature of the global migration of healthcare workers as well as the position of healthcare migrants themselves (who often get trapped in less desirable jobs in poorer areas in destination countries), scholars have noted that it is not sufficient to diminish either the desire of healthcare professionals to search for better lives or the power of destination countries in attracting or recruiting such workers. Such an approach also underscores the choices made by individual healthcare workers rather than the broader structures that shape migration. However, unpacking the role played by private capital provides a more fruitful line of enquiry that would avoid a situation in which individual migrants are unfairly held responsible for general public health problems. The focus of this paper is on the role of international law in oiling the machine of migration by enabling private capital to structure migratory processes.