IWPR has a piece on the impact of labor migration on the healthcare system in Kyrgyzstan. Reading it, I couldn't help but think of the controversy caused by healthcare workers emigrating en masse from Africa to the UK. This was a much-discussed topic in a very interesting course I took last fall on "international migration and development." The reasons for migration from rural regions of Central Asia to urban areas of Kazakhstan and Russia are similar to the reasons for migration from Africa to the UK - money is the main reason, of course, and a common language smooths the path of migration, although there are some interesting wrinkles along the way. For example, according to this article on "Doctors and Soccer Players - African Professionals on the Move," in Ghana, the dearth of native professionals is made up in part by reinforcements from Cuba.
One of the things mentioned in the IWPR story is that Russians are coming down to Kyrgyzstan to recruit healthcare workers. The UK and South Africa apparently reached an agreement to reduce such "poaching" several years ago, but I doubt such agreements will be in the offing between former Soviet republics in the near future. Russia needs the professionals and can pay them, and given relatively low barriers to migration labor will flow to where it gets paid most.
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