The international migration and recruitment of nurses: human rights and global justice.

THE INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION OF HEALTH CARE workers—physicians, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists—leaves the world’s poorest countries with severe human resource shortages, seriously jeopardizing the achievement of the UN Health Millennium Development Goals. Advocates for global health call active recruitment in low-income countries a crime. Despite the pronounced international concern, there is little research and few solutions. This Commentary focuses on the international recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the perspective of human rights and global justice.