Resolution on health workforce policies, 59th Meeting, EUR/RC59/R4

Following consideration of document EUR/RC59/9 the Regional Committee urged Member States:

• to increase their efforts to develop and implement sustainable health workforce policies, strategies and plans as a critical component of health systems strengthening, particularly in view of the changing demographics and health care needs in the Region, and the need to ensure equitable access to health care services while minimizing the need to rely on the immigration of health personnel from other countries;
• to increase their efforts to monitor the trends in, and patterns of, health workforce migration and to assess its impact in order to identify and initiate effective migration-related policy options, including the enactment of a new, and/or harmonization of their existing, code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel, and establishing agreements with other countries to address the movement of health workers;
• to advocate the adoption of a global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel in line with the European values of solidarity, equity and participation, both within the WHO European Region and globally;
• to advocate, in line with the principles of transparency, ethics, fairness and mutuality of benefits, that the code should include protecting the right of a health worker to leave his or her own country, and balance the relation between the individual rights of the migrant workers and the right to health of the populations of the source countries, helping to mitigate the effects of migration on the health systems of source countries; and  
• to promote positive development effects of migration within the health care sector.