An immoral plundering of other countries’ intellectual resources
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Version 0 of 1. Ivan Krastev’s article (Britain’s gain is east Europe’s brain drain, 24 March) highlights the detrimental effects on Bulgaria of emigration to the UK and elsewhere in western Europe. It has a much more disastrous effect on Africa and South Asia than even on Bulgaria. I recently had a spell as a patient in Leeds general infirmary and it was like being at the United Nations. At every level, from consultants to student nurses and to cleaners, there were splendid staff from various continents. This was greatly to the benefit of patients here but, having also had medical treatment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Malawi, and having experienced the huge contrast – which is, of course, far worse for the local population – it is difficult to justify bribing key workers in developing countries to come here. We are too fond of accepting immigrants who are useful to our society without considering the implications to their own country. Alas, no one now repeats the words on the statue of liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”Michael MeadowcroftLeeds • It is remarkable that Bulgaria pays to train nurses but it is the UK that benefits. The situation vis-a-vis even poorer countries is yet more morally untenable: a 2012 study in the British Medical Journal estimated the benefit to the UK of recruiting doctors from nine sub-Saharan countries most affected by HIV/Aids at $2.7bn – by far the biggest single transfer of human capital from Africa to a wealthy country. A similar nurse-shaped transfer of wealth has occurred – at a time when nurse training places in the UK have been drastically cut: it is, after all, cheaper to get Africa to pay for the training. Liberal crowing about “enrichment” is unseemly: we should be campaigning to have at least the full cost of training refunded to source countries. Peter McKennaLiverpool • It is a much repeated cliche that the influx of immigrants into the UK has been beneficial, but has it? This is a genuine question. What have been the costs both to certain sections of the local communities in the UK and to the source countries? Have wages in the UK been depressed? Have house prices risen as a result of this increased demand? Can local GP and education services cope? And what is the effect on the source countries? An inconvenient truth is that each year up to 85% of newly qualified doctors in Ethiopia leave to work in the USA or Europe. Patients in the USA and the UK benefit from these extra trained doctors but what about the patients left in Ethiopia who have to manage with three doctors per 100,000 of the population while we have 600 doctors per 100,000? During the years of British imperialism we stripped countries of natural resources, now we are stripping them of their intellectual resources. True equality would be achieved by helping the source countries to become more economically and socially attractive so their populations no longer need to leave.Neil SinclairEdinburgh |