CARICOM's Council on Human and Social Development (COHSOD) has agreed to work on the development of a strategy for "managed migration" with the training of professionals for export on a rotation basis.

Outlining to the media the outcome of the just concluded Sixth Meeting of COHSOD in Georgetown yesterday, Assistant CARICOM Secretary-General, Edward Greene, said that the council expressed its concern about the impact of migration to, and recruitment by developed countries of experienced health professionals.

The idea of managed migration was presented to the meeting by Jamaica's Minister of Health, John Junor, at the ministerial panel discussion which set the framework for the discussions that followed. He was one of three panellists making presentations at the first working session.

Noting the loss of human resources from the Caribbean to the metropoles of Europe and the US primarily, Junor told Stabroek News after the press conference that the challenge the region faced was how "to retain staff or sufficient of them to ensure sustainability for our own system and, two, if we have the reality of the pull factor."

He noted that from time immemorial the region has been providing labour in one form or another to those countries and many nationals from the region saw migration as the grass being greener on the other side.

He recommended that this migration be translated into something positive and managed, so that regional governments would be able to plan for `X' percentage of doctors and nurses migrating and look at innovative ways to allow this on a rotating basis, where professionals would go away for three years, or so, then return.

Noting that this form of managed migration had been done on hotel workers' and farm workers' programmes, he suggested that training of professionals for export be looked at.

Public Service Management Minister, Dr Jennifer Westford, who stood in for Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, told reporters at the briefing that the suggestion should be explored as the truth was that the region was losing professionals and it was better to lose them in a managed way than simply allow recruiters to come in then find the public service with fewer teachers and nurses.

According to Junor, the critical elements would be establishing bilateral agreements with the countries recruiting Caribbean professionals and seeking to gain their assistance in training. Training, he noted, was expensive and, in fact, the brain drain represented a subsidy to the already developed economies. As such, he said, "they ought to be putting back something."

Junor said that Jamaica, which has been hit by a shortage of teachers and nurses due to heavy recruitment from Europe and the US, was currently looking at the issue of managed migration and was in the process of implementing a pilot programme that would assist in this regard. However, given the complexity of issues to be addressed, COHSOD agreed that the matter be referred to the Futures Policy Group to be refined and forwarded to the Heads of Government.

The recent Caribbean/UK forum in Georgetown agreed that a pilot study will be done on the brain drain issue after it was raised during discussions. Jamaica has increasingly been pressing this issue.

On the matter of the free movement of skills and travel in the region, COHSOD was informed that a meeting of officials in March to operationalise the free movement of university graduates, artistes, musicians, sportspersons and media personnel by the end of June, recommended that free movement should be facilitated even if the necessary regulations were not yet in place in a number of member states.

The ministerial panel also identified the importance of developing policies and programmes in support of the central role of health in development. Among the priorities the panellists highlighted was the need for revisiting the methods of financing health care. It was indicated that the traditional safety net approach to alleviating poverty and health inequalities had been tried and had proven to be a short-term remedy and unsustainable.

Among other issues dealt with were the implementation of the Nassau Declaration (on health being the wealth of the region), the Pan Caribbean Partnership which includes the Caribbean Cooperation in Health Initiative, the regional strategic plan on non-communicable diseases, the regional strategic plan on mental health and the regional strategic plan on HIV/AIDS.