The effect of nurse emigration on the countries of origin is not that simple (''U.S. Plan to Lure Nurses May Hurt Poor Nations'').
There is no such thing as a fixed quantity of nurses to be ''drained'' from the Philippines or Africa, like petroleum from the ground.
People -- in this case, mostly low-income women -- react to global markets and change their career plans accordingly. That's why the Philippines today has more nurses per capita than Britain.
Many Filipinos wouldn't have become nurses if not for the migration opportunity, and thus are not ''lost'' in any sense when they depart.
Africans are starting to follow suit, opening career paths for professional women who would otherwise have few.
This should not be discouraged through closed immigration policy, but rather taken advantage of through the establishment of for-export nurse training programs, as the Philippines has done.
Unlike petroleum, those women are human beings. They have rights and ambitions whose fruition in the United States is a beautiful thing.
Michael A. Clemens
Washington, May 24, 2006
The writer is a research fellow at the Center for Global Development.