THERE are 652 Pacific Island-born doctors and 3467 Pacific-Island born nurses and midwives working in Australia and New Zealand, and more than half of these are from Fiji.
University of Sydney lecturer in International Public Health, Joel Negin, gace these statistics at the population and development symposium.
Mr Negin said these countries had more Fijian health workers than there were in the domestic workforce.
Australia and NZ 2006 census show there were 247 Fiji-born doctors in Australia and 114 in New Zealand; the total 361 was near Fiji's workforce of 380.
Australia has 1249 Fiji-born nurses and midwives and New Zealand had 579; the total - 1828 - exceeding Fiji's workforce of 1660.
Health Ministry figures show Fiji now has 1811 nurses and midwives and 396 doctors.
"Beyond health indicators, the migration of health workers has a significant financial burden on the health sector," Mr Negin said.
"The annual cost to the Fiji Government of the 23 doctors who resigned in 1999 was US$7,000,000 in training - the hiring of expatriate doctors to replace them was an additional US$1,400,000 a year."
Mr Negin said with most health resources under pressure, these lost expenses had affected the opportunity to improve the health system.
He sai the the reasons for migration were low remuneration, lack of training and poor working conditions, "a situation that is only exacerbated by the lost funds that could have been spent on strengthening health systems and improving pay".
Mr Negin said nurses working in Australia and New Zealand enjoyed a mean income of $1100 per month in comparison with $318 per month for return migrants and $221 per month for non-migrants.
He said that in reality, these countries were experiencing brain-drain as well and were reliant on health workers from developing countries for its health workforce.
"Australia, much like the US and UK, acknowledges that it has growing health worker needs and that it will have a continuing dependence on overseas-trained health professionals to cover the shortfall," Mr Negin said.
