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At least 15,000 nurses and other medical professionals are leaving the Philippines each year for better-paying jobs abroad, threatening the country's health infrastructure, World Health Organization (WHO) officials warned. WHO officials called it a serious situation for the Philippines.
The number is more than any other country, with the United States, Britain and lately Australia the main destinations.
WHO country representative Jean Marc Olive estimated that the exodus was expected to persist until 2015, with annual demand for medical workers in the United States and Europe estimated to be about 800,000.
He urged the Philippino government to "look into the needs of the health workers" and adopt plans to convince them to stay.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque acknowledged the problem, estimating that 85 percent of the country's nurses have left the Philippines, where four in 10 people live on two dollars a day or less.
Medical workers started to go overseas in large numbers when the country's mass labor export program begun in the 1970s.
Filipinos living permanently in wealthier countries, and temporary overseas workers, sent back a record 10.7 billion dollars to their families in the Philippines through the formal banking system last year, the central bank said.
