In a span of four years, 3,390 of Kenya's 30,000 registered nurses migrated to Europe and the United States. During this period between 2000 and 2004, about 1,200 nurses were leaving Kenya for greener pastures every year, the National Nurses Association of Kenya (NMAK) says. Nurses have long been overworked and underpaid and found themselves ripe for easy pickings with the attractive pay offered by clinics in countries that have so willingly absorbed them.