Despite severe data deficiencies in most source countries, what emerged
fromthis exercise was a continuum of situations that debunk the simple duality
of source and destination countries. There is a spectrum of types of nurse
shortages and policy reactions to the phenomenon of nurse shortages and
migration. Several key variables define the diversity of situations, including
nurse vacancy and unemployment rates, causes of the shortages, the level of
education of the nurses who leave the country, nursing education capacity
and, of course, the political will to retain and produce more nurses, and the
policy reactions to migration itself. In reviewing these case studies, we see at
least five different scenarios.