There has been a looming crisis in the medical sector experienced in many countries, both the developed and the developing. The situation is worse in the developing countries yet it is these countries that loose their professionals to the developed countries. The figure below shows the shortage of medical professionals world wide (Kapur & Mchale, pp 11). The above results were conducted by the world health organization (WHO), but other researches conducted indicate that the figures are higher than what the WHO had found.
There are many factors that cause the medical practitioners to migrate from one region to another, but the major reasons can be categorized into the push and pull factors in supply and demand. I
n the supply push factors, the medical practitioners decide to leave their positions in the home country because of the poor pay, working conditions, and opportunities to develop their careers. These factors also cause a practitioner in a developed country to migrate to another developed country (Crush, pp 6).
The demand pull factors are found in the destination country that attracts the practitioners to move into that country. For a practitioner to move, the pull factors have to be more lucrative than the push factors. In the developed countries, the pull factors are high than in the developing countries making most of the practitioners to move to the developed countries. The salaries alone in the developed countries are several times higher than in the developing countries.