Aging Baby Boomers Face Losing Care as Immigrant Healthcare Providers Go Home

The United States, which is among the developed countries that rely on Philippine nurses and Indian doctors to hold down costs in the $6.5 trillion global health-care industry face greater competition for talent just as baby boomers in the U.S., Europe and Japan reach the prime age for medical care. Economic growth in emerging economies, despite some signs of recent slowing, is causing foreign doctors and nurses to stay at home or go somewhere else.

There has been a great imbalance that has caused a severe shortage of healthcare workers in developing nations. For example, Japan had 2.2 doctors and 9.5 nurses per 1,000 people in 2009, while the U.S. had 2.4 doctors and 10.8 nurses, according to the OECD. In India it was 0.7 and 0.9 during the same time. It is going to get much, much, worse as baby boomers age and an entire generation of doctors and nurses will retire over the next decade.

The Philippines for example plans to build and rehabilitate more than 2,700 hospitals, clinics and community health centers next year as part of $9.7 billion investment in infrastructure. The nation’s $225 billion economy expanded 6.1 percent in the first half, and the peso is the best performer against the dollar among Asia’s 11 most-traded currencies this year, advancing about 5.5 percent. Better jobs are available for its citizens so some of them choose to stay home.

Save the Children, an organization based out of Westport, Connecticut, said recently that there is a world shortage of more than 3 million healthcare workers, including at least 1 million community nurses and doctors.

In New Zealand, 34 percent of doctors and 21 percent of nurses are from abroad, the highest among developed countries, while in the U.S. 27 percent of doctors and 5 percent of nurses are foreign, the WHO said in its 2006 World Health Report. Philippine and Indian nationals lead the supply, each making up 15 percent of all immigrant nurses and doctors respectively in the 34-member Organization for Co-operation and Development.

The cost of healthcare workers is likely to rise, which is good new for immigrant doctors also. But other countries compete with the U.S. For example, a full-time registered nurse in the U.S. makes about $57,000 a year, while in Australia they earn as much as A$75,000 ($78,000). If the U.S. does not ease its immigration requirements for doctors and nurses, they will stay behind with shortages that are about to get much, much worse.