"This article examines the east-west migration of health care workers in the context of EU integration. Taking as its starting point three research studies carried out by the author into attitudes towards migration and the quality of professional life of Romanian heath care workers, the article pinpoints some of the major policy issues implicit in the migration debate, including the need of western states for labour to support their own health care systems and their ability to attract it in the context of a free market from states whose health care systems are less able to support the loss of personnel in this way. The article develops a formal theoretical model of the 'push' and 'pull' factors implicit in migration decisions and, in the context of an examination of the causes of migration, focuses on the factors which facilitate and discourage such decisions. It concludes with a study of the effects of migration, focusing largely on the health care systems of departing countries but also encompassing the impact in destination ones."

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