Poor nations’ inestimable gift to the rich

United Nations, March 10: The UN SecretaryGeneral, Kurt Waldheim says that deprived of immigrant doctors and nurses from developing countries, “Large segments of the hospital systems of the United States and the United Kingdom would collapse.”

In a new report on the “Brain Drain”, he adds that the United States, Britain and Canada, as the Chief recipients of such medical personnel, are actually “receiving a gift from the developing countries” worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year. He explains these countries get people trained to perform “critically important medical service” without having to pay for their training, because they have already been educated back home.

“It costs about $50,000 to train a physician in the United States” he points out. “Some 7,000 foreign physicians were admitted to the United States in 1972.”

At that rate, it would have cost $350 million to turn out the American doctors that would have been needed had the foreigners not come in.

Dr. Waldheim suggests some guidelines for stopping the brain drain: the developing countries should check immigration and tax nationals who insist on studying abroad after being educated at Government expense. The developing nations also should be compensated by the developed countries for the trained personnel they supply.

Dr. Waldheim’s report, prepared at the request of the General Assembly with the help of a group of experts, will come up in the UN Committee on Science and Technology and Development, which begins a 19day session here tomorrow.