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Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists
BACKGROUND: The migration of health-care workers contributes to the shortage of health-care workers in many developing countries. This paper aims to describe the migration of medical specialists from Sri Lanka and to discuss the successes and failures of strategies to retain them. METHODS: This pape...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664600/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23693092 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-11-21 |
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author | De Silva, A Pubudu Liyanage, Isurujith Kongala De Silva, S Terrance GR Jayawardana, Mahesha B Liyanage, Chiranthi K Karunathilake, Indika M |
author_facet | De Silva, A Pubudu Liyanage, Isurujith Kongala De Silva, S Terrance GR Jayawardana, Mahesha B Liyanage, Chiranthi K Karunathilake, Indika M |
author_sort | De Silva, A Pubudu |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The migration of health-care workers contributes to the shortage of health-care workers in many developing countries. This paper aims to describe the migration of medical specialists from Sri Lanka and to discuss the successes and failures of strategies to retain them. METHODS: This paper presents data on all trainees who have left Sri Lanka for postgraduate training through the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, from April 1980 to June 2009. In addition, confidential interviews were conducted with 30 specialists who returned following foreign training within the last 5 years and 5 specialists who opted to migrate to foreign countries. RESULTS: From a total of 1,915 specialists who left Sri Lanka for training, 215 (11%) have not returned or have left the country without completing the specified bond period. The majority (53%) migrated to Australia. Of the specialists who left before completion of the bond period, 148 (68.8%) have settled or have started settling the bond. All participants identified foreign training as beneficial for their career. The top reasons for staying in Sri Lanka were: job security, income from private practice, proximity to family and a culturally appropriate environment. The top reasons for migration were: better quality of life, having to work in rural parts of Sri Lanka, career development and social security. CONCLUSIONS: This paper attempts to discuss the reasons for the low rates of emigration of specialists from Sri Lanka. Determining the reasons for retaining these specialists may be useful in designing health systems and postgraduate programs in developing countries with high rates of emigration of specialists. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3664600 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-36646002013-05-28 Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists De Silva, A Pubudu Liyanage, Isurujith Kongala De Silva, S Terrance GR Jayawardana, Mahesha B Liyanage, Chiranthi K Karunathilake, Indika M Hum Resour Health Research BACKGROUND: The migration of health-care workers contributes to the shortage of health-care workers in many developing countries. This paper aims to describe the migration of medical specialists from Sri Lanka and to discuss the successes and failures of strategies to retain them. METHODS: This paper presents data on all trainees who have left Sri Lanka for postgraduate training through the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, from April 1980 to June 2009. In addition, confidential interviews were conducted with 30 specialists who returned following foreign training within the last 5 years and 5 specialists who opted to migrate to foreign countries. RESULTS: From a total of 1,915 specialists who left Sri Lanka for training, 215 (11%) have not returned or have left the country without completing the specified bond period. The majority (53%) migrated to Australia. Of the specialists who left before completion of the bond period, 148 (68.8%) have settled or have started settling the bond. All participants identified foreign training as beneficial for their career. The top reasons for staying in Sri Lanka were: job security, income from private practice, proximity to family and a culturally appropriate environment. The top reasons for migration were: better quality of life, having to work in rural parts of Sri Lanka, career development and social security. CONCLUSIONS: This paper attempts to discuss the reasons for the low rates of emigration of specialists from Sri Lanka. Determining the reasons for retaining these specialists may be useful in designing health systems and postgraduate programs in developing countries with high rates of emigration of specialists. BioMed Central 2013-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3664600/ /pubmed/23693092 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-11-21 Text en Copyright © 2013 De Silva et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research De Silva, A Pubudu Liyanage, Isurujith Kongala De Silva, S Terrance GR Jayawardana, Mahesha B Liyanage, Chiranthi K Karunathilake, Indika M Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title | Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title_full | Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title_fullStr | Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title_full_unstemmed | Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title_short | Migration of Sri Lankan medical specialists |
title_sort | migration of sri lankan medical specialists |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3664600/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23693092 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-11-21 |
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