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Paper & Topic: GS II à Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

India has been a major exporter of healthcare workers to industrialised countries, particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Europe, and other English-speaking countries, for several decades.
Part of the reason for the scarcity of nurses and doctors is because of this.
According to government data, India has 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people and a doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:1,404, which is much below than the WHO standard of three nurses per 1,000 people and a doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:1,100.

According to OECD data, approximately 69,000 Indian-trained doctors worked in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia in 2017.
In the same year, 56,000 Indian-trained nurses worked in these four countries.
There is also a large-scale movement of health workers to the GCC countries, however there is no reliable statistics on the number of these workers in these countries.
As with low- and semi-skilled migration, there is no real-time data on high-skilled migration from India.

Resident doctors are overworked and underpaid: Residents in MD and DM programmes are required to work more than 90 hours a week. They are either paid a pittance of less than $50,000 a month, which is insufficient to compensate for their stress and pressure.
As a result, people who complete their MBBS seek greater prospects in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe.
In terms of higher compensation and better possibilities in the destination countries, there are substantial pull forces connected with healthcare worker migration.
The UK has awarded eligible overseas healthcare workers and their dependents free one-year visa extensions if their visas were set to expire before October 2021.
During the outbreak, France extended citizenship to frontline immigrant healthcare personnel.
However, there are a number of compelling reasons for these workers to relocate abroad.
Low earnings in the private sector, along with limited chances in the public sector, encourages people to look for work outside of the country.
The lack of government investment in healthcare, as well as long wait times for appointments at public health institutions, is a driving force behind such migration.

The government has tried for years to stop the brain drain of healthcare employees, but with little or no success.
It ceased granting No Objection to Return to India (NORI) certificates to doctors relocating to the United States in 2014.
The NORI certificate is a requirement of the US government for doctors who come to America on a J1 visa and want to stay longer than three years.
The doctors will be forced to return to India at the conclusion of the three-year period if the NORI is not issued.
Nurses have been added to the Emigration Check Required (ECR) category by the government.
This decision was made in order to increase transparency in nursing recruiting and decrease nurse exploitation in destination nations.
The government's efforts for preventing brain drain are restricted and do not provide a long-term solution to the problem.

We need to make systemic reforms, such as investing more in health infrastructure, assuring appropriate compensation for workers, and creating an overall atmosphere that encourages them to stay in the country.
The government should focus on developing regulations that encourage healthcare personnel to return home after completing their training or study.
It might also work on drafting bilateral agreements to help define a "brain-share" strategy between sending and receiving countries.
According to the 2020 Human Development Report, India has five hospital beds for every 10,000 people, which is one of the lowest rates in the world.
Increased healthcare spending, particularly in the public sector, is thus urgently required.
As a result, health-care employees would have more job opportunities.