The protection of human lives and rights should be the fundamental role and desire for all nurses and doctors regardless of geographical boundaries (Kingma, 2007). People experience suffering through diseases in different parts of the world; hence American doctors and nurses should be given visas to operate in every country of the world so that they can eradicate serious diseases and reduce human pain and suffering as a fundamental human right. Nurses and doctors operating in foreign countries also help in spreading technical knowhow, experience, and human capital to other countries so that they can have the capacity to manage diseases and reduce mortality rates (Masselink and Jones, 2014). Such efforts will be helpful to the United States because healthy countries will have productive citizens who will create a suitable market for U.S. products and sources of raw materials for U.S. companies and industries. Doctors and nurses should be given global visas as because it enables them to save lives and control the spread of diseases across the world, and gain experience in working with diverse populations. Providing global visas to U.S. doctors and nurses to be able to perform anywhere in the world, as one of the basic human rights, helps minimize the spread of diseases and save more lives.
The governments and countries that would oppose the provision of global visas are those that send the doctors abroad, as well as economists and politicians who have invested in the education of doctors at home. The U.S. government has invested a lot of money in training and developing its doctors and nurses. Thus, sending the healthcare staff to foreign countries will be costly and uneconomical to the government. Although the health workers sent to foreign countries will remit money to the U.S., some government officials and agencies would argue that the remittances will not cover the costs invested by the government in educating the doctors (Aluttis, Bishaw and Frank, 2014). Moreover, the money sent back goes to families, friends and relatives; yet the nurses and doctors received public funding for their education and training. The government could also lose tax payments and rebates if the doctors go abroad instead of working in the local healthcare facilities. Therefore, giving global visas to medics will benefit individuals and their families rather than the country that funded the education of those personnel.
Interest groups such as healthcare facilities and local communities may also oppose global visas because they allow doctors and nurses to travel abroad and cause shortage of healthcare services in the country. If healthcare staff are sent to work abroad, the remaining staff could be insufficient to meet the local demand for healthcare services (Esposito, 2017). Furthermore, skilled and talented individuals with global visas may be attracted by better payment in other countries, leaving less skilled staff to work under low capacity in the local healthcare sector. The remaining individuals may also lose morale and commitment to provide quality health services. Despite these potential disadvantages of having global visas, there are several humanitarian benefits of sending healthcare professionals abroad to both the sending country and the receiving country.
The current topic on global visas is of great interest to various world aid and humanitarian organizations because it deals with the critical issue of health. There are various issues that affect human health such as wars, natural disasters, and diseases. These challenges require qualified, skilled, trained, knowledgeable and experienced staff to provide essential healthcare services (Aluttis et al, 2014). Because healthcare is a global issue and diseases may spread form one country to another, it is necessary for the world leaders and non-governmental organizations to provide global healthcare services. Thus, global visas are necessary to allow various workers in the healthcare system to work in different countries, especially those that face problems of chronic diseases and humanitarian crises.
The following world aid and humanitarian organizations should understand and appreciate the necessity of providing global visas: World Health Organization (WHO), Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Doctors without Borders, and CARE International. WHO is a United Nations agency that responses to global health and provides healthcare services and medicine to vulnerable populations (World Health Organization, 2018). The organization collects humanitarian donations from partners and governments from UN countries to support communities facing disease outbreaks across the world. Red Cross also responses to emergency situations and donate resources and medicine to people during disasters such as floods, war, and other natural and man-made disasters. These organizations require healthcare professionals with global visas to help them respond effectively to emergencies.
Opponents to this view would argue that providing global visas leads to outsourcing of professionals from the U.S., and the local medical facilities will lack qualified doctors and nurses. However, the United States provides good standards for medical and healthcare services across the world, and the doctors and nurses who work abroad gain sufficient experience and skills to provide better services locally when they come back. International humanitarian organizations and healthcare facilities experience shortages of healthcare personnel, especially in less developed countries. As a member of the UN and one of the most powerful countries of the world, the U.S. has the responsibility to support humanitarian interventions carried out by various world aid organizations. One of the ways of supporting humanitarian efforts is by providing global visas to allow U.S. nurses and doctors to work with such organizations in healthcare missions across the world.
One of the most important benefits of giving visas to healthcare workers is the promotion of collaborative partnership to promote health and reduce mortality rates across the world (Aluttis et al, 2014). If nurses and doctors acquire global visas, they get the opportunity to develop professional networks with other skilled medics from different parts of the world. The returnees from global missions will come with essential experience and skills to address a wide range of healthcare challenges in the country. For the receiving countries, visas help them to access qualified staff to reduce the shortage of workers in the local healthcare system. Doctors and nurses from the country also enhance health care quality in foreign countries, leading to positive relationships between the United States and other countries of the world.
Doctors and nurses from the U.S. have a chance of saving lives in foreign countries due to their expertise and training. One of the key examples that show how global visas would potentially allow local personnel to save lives abroad and address the shortage of physicians is the story of Kathryn Starkley. The gynecologist explained her experience as a doctor in New Zealand, a country that takes hundreds of doctors from the U.S. every year (American Medical News, 2009). As explained by Dr. Starkley, foreign countries such as New Zealand offer permanent opportunities for employment, but many prospects are temporary. Foreign governments and humanitarian organizations recruit American doctors on permanent or temporary basis to fill the skill gap in the health care sectors of other countries.
There are instances in which U.S. doctors fail to save lives abroad because they lack global visas and the necessary equipment to operate in other countries. For example, the story of a young boy named Charlie Gard who was admitted to a UK hospital is also indicates how visas would allow U.S. doctors and nurses to save lives abroad. The terminally ill eight-month boy attended the Great Ormond Street Hospital where he was diagnosed with a generic condition with little chances of survival (Dixon, 2017). An American doctor commented that the child would have an option of treatment with reasonable chance of survival in America. The nucleoside therapy is a pioneering treatment, and had never been tried (Dixon, 2017). The parents chose to seek the treatment while the hospital declined, arguing that moving the boy to America would prolong his life. If global visas were offered to U.S. doctors, such incidences would be treated abroad without necessarily moving the child to the United States.
To acquire the global visa for nurses and doctors, the U.S. NCLEX standards may be used to provide the required licensing, visa screening, and accreditation. Through this system, doctors and nurses are required to pass the NCLEX examination to ensure that they have the relevant skills and experience to meet the U.S. standards of nursing, which could be applied globally. After passing the examination, nurses and doctors are given licenses to ensure that they can practice across the world. Lastly, the medical practitioners should be given visas to travel across the world once they have passed NCLEX exams and received accreditation and license.
In conclusion, it is plausible to argue that global visas have the potential of saving lives abroad and promoting positive relationships between the United States (Castenada, 2017). However, opponents of such argument suggest that global visas will lead to loss of valuable staff in the U.S. The government would incur significant costs in education and training of doctors and nurses without receiving taxes and services of the trained personnel. With a high level of natural disasters and disease outbreaks in other parts of the world, the United States has the responsibility to work in partnership with humanitarian organizations to deliver quality healthcare services abroad to save lives and build meaningful partnerships with other countries in disease control and response management, leading to reduced spread and impact of chronic diseases and disasters across the world.
References
Aluttis, C., Bishaw, and Frank, M.W. (2014). The workforce for health in a globalized context – global shortages and international migration. Global Health Action, 4(7), 1-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.23611.
American Medical News (2009). Dr. Expat: American physicians on foreign soil. American Medical News, http://www.amednews.com/article/20090720/business/307209994/4/.
Castenada, R. (March 22, 2017). Doctors Saving Lives Across Borders: How Immigration Spurs Medical Innovation. U.S. News, https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2017-03-22/doctors-saving-lives-across-borders-how-immigration-spurs-medical-innovation.
Dixon, H. (April 3, 2017). Terminally ill boy denied “potentially life-saving” treatment by NHS ‘would be given it in any US hospital’. The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/03/terminally-boy-denied-potentially-life-saving-treatment-nhs/.
Esposito, L. (March 29, 2017). Immigrant Nurses: Filling the Next U.S. Shortage. U.S. News, https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2017-03-29/immigrant-nurses-filling-the-next-us-shortage.
Kingma, M. (2007). Nurses on the Move: A Global Overview. Health Services Research, 42(3), 1281-1298.
Masselink, L.E. and Jones, C.B. (2014). Immigration policy and internationally educated nurses in the United States: A brief history. Nursing Outlook, 62(1), 39-45.
World Health Organization (2018). About WHO: Who we Are. World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/en/.
