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‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland

BACKGROUND: Achieving a sustainable health workforce involves training and retaining sufficient staff to deliver health services. The Irish health workforce is characterised by a high level of emigration of Irish-trained staff and a heavy reliance on internationally trained staff. This paper present...

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Autores principales: Humphries, Niamh, McAleese, Sara, Matthews, Anne, Brugha, Ruairi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4437248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25981629
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-015-0022-6
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author Humphries, Niamh
McAleese, Sara
Matthews, Anne
Brugha, Ruairi
author_facet Humphries, Niamh
McAleese, Sara
Matthews, Anne
Brugha, Ruairi
author_sort Humphries, Niamh
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Achieving a sustainable health workforce involves training and retaining sufficient staff to deliver health services. The Irish health workforce is characterised by a high level of emigration of Irish-trained staff and a heavy reliance on internationally trained staff. This paper presents qualitative findings from a mixed-method study of doctors, nurses and midwives who have recently emigrated from Ireland. METHODS: Using Facebook, this study elicited 556 (388 completed) responses to an exploratory mixed-method online survey in July 2014. Respondents provided rich responses to two free-text questions, one on health worker return (N = 343) and another on health professional emigration (N = 209) from the source country (Ireland). RESULTS: Respondents emigrated because of difficult working conditions in the Irish health system (long working hours, uncertain career progression), which compared poorly with conditions in the destination country. Respondents’ experiences in the destination country vindicated the decision to emigrate and complicated the decision to return. Their return to Ireland was contingent upon significant reform of the Irish health system and an improvement in working conditions, expressed, for example, as: ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about respect . . . we love working in medicine, but we love our families and health more’ (RD283). CONCLUSIONS: This paper highlights that doctors, nurses and midwives are emigrating from Ireland in search of better working conditions, clear career progression pathways and a better practice environment. The question for the source country is whether it can retain and attract back emigrant doctors, nurses and midwives by matching their expectations.
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spelling pubmed-44372482015-05-20 ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland Humphries, Niamh McAleese, Sara Matthews, Anne Brugha, Ruairi Hum Resour Health Research BACKGROUND: Achieving a sustainable health workforce involves training and retaining sufficient staff to deliver health services. The Irish health workforce is characterised by a high level of emigration of Irish-trained staff and a heavy reliance on internationally trained staff. This paper presents qualitative findings from a mixed-method study of doctors, nurses and midwives who have recently emigrated from Ireland. METHODS: Using Facebook, this study elicited 556 (388 completed) responses to an exploratory mixed-method online survey in July 2014. Respondents provided rich responses to two free-text questions, one on health worker return (N = 343) and another on health professional emigration (N = 209) from the source country (Ireland). RESULTS: Respondents emigrated because of difficult working conditions in the Irish health system (long working hours, uncertain career progression), which compared poorly with conditions in the destination country. Respondents’ experiences in the destination country vindicated the decision to emigrate and complicated the decision to return. Their return to Ireland was contingent upon significant reform of the Irish health system and an improvement in working conditions, expressed, for example, as: ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about respect . . . we love working in medicine, but we love our families and health more’ (RD283). CONCLUSIONS: This paper highlights that doctors, nurses and midwives are emigrating from Ireland in search of better working conditions, clear career progression pathways and a better practice environment. The question for the source country is whether it can retain and attract back emigrant doctors, nurses and midwives by matching their expectations. BioMed Central 2015-05-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4437248/ /pubmed/25981629 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-015-0022-6 Text en © Humphries et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Humphries, Niamh
McAleese, Sara
Matthews, Anne
Brugha, Ruairi
‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title_full ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title_fullStr ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title_full_unstemmed ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title_short ‘Emigration is a matter of self-preservation. The working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from Ireland
title_sort ‘emigration is a matter of self-preservation. the working conditions . . . are killing us slowly’: qualitative insights into health professional emigration from ireland
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4437248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25981629
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-015-0022-6
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