Some 20 per cent of Jamaica's specialist nurses and eight per cent of its registered nurses leave the island annually in pursuit of greener pastures overseas. This is according to senior University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer, Keirh Nurse's Policy Paper entitled 'Diaspora, Migration and Development in the Caribbean'. Additional information from the Ministry of Education suggests that approximately 2,000 teachers have left the country between 2000 and 2002.

Call for concern

Speaking at a commemorative conference held at Northern Caribbean University under the theme 'Migration and Brain Strain: Implications for Higher Learning', Professor Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, head of the UWI's Geography and Geology Department said the rates of emigration calls for much concern.

"The gush of persons leaving creates a problem, and definitely over the last decade teachers and nurses have been emigrating at alarming rates," she said. "Though many add value when they migrate, pursuing masters degrees and special diplomas, one can readily see the brain drain and can imagine the pressure that puts on local budgets and systems."

Referring to a study done by the Planning Institute of Jamaica and Dr. Pauline Knight, which concluded that over 82 per cent of Jamaicans with tertiary level education, that were living and working in the United States in the 1990s were trained in Jamaica. Thomas-Hope continued that brain-drain robs a country of much needed skilled and academic labour, required for nation building; destroys families and strips a people of its pride and confidence.