- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THEY were left stranded in foreign territory after recruitment agents duped them but eventually their profession rescued them. Around 230 Indian nurses from the southern state of Kerala who found themselves landing in trouble in Dubai have been roped in by some major private health-care groups there.
Last month, Gulf News reported that several nurses from Kerala were brought to the UAE as the recruitment agents promised them jobs at Covid-19 vaccination and testing centres. The nurses reached the UAE on visit visas and even paid high commissions in the range between Rs 2 lakh (USD 2,745) to Rs 3.5 lakh (USD 4,800).
But once the nurses’ plight was reported, a number of health-care groups in Dubai came forward to help them in order to help their own fight against the pandemic. In a statement issued to Gulf News on Wednesday, June 2, an official source at NMC Healthcare, the Sheikhdom’s biggest private healthcare provider, said: “Out of many prospective nurses, those who approached us after Gulf News broke the story of fraud and plight, 24 of them have been interviewed and are at various stages of selection, hiring and placement.” The statement added that efforts were on to see that the nurses get employed fast and a series of walk-in nursing events were being hosted in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah on June 11.
Aster DM Healthcare said it also conducted walk-in interviews for nurses and have selected more than 100 nurses who were affected. The group has even asked the stranded nurses to refer to the Gulf News report in the subject line of their application while sending their CVs.
Right Health, another big healthcare organization in India, has also come forward to help the nurses. Dr Sanjay Paithankar, the organisation’s managing director, said they have interviewed almost 40 nurses and 14 of them have been offered jobs. Plans were on to hire 12 more.
Dr Paithankar said the qualifications and experience of many of the nurses are impressive and it is for the first time that they unlicensed nurses were being taken to work on a temporary permit. He said the care-givers were provided with shelter and transportation and will also be helped in writing exams to procure licenses in three months.
VPS Healthcare in Abu Dhabi announced last week that they had recruited 90 nurses, including 81 females and nine males.
The nurses are still scared of the racket
The Gulf News report said that two stranded women nurses, who filed a petition with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to blow the lid off the recruitment scam, also got jobs in the UAE. The duo, Reena Rajan and her cousin’s wife Susan Saji, left the accommodation that the recruitment agents made for them once they learned that they had been duped. They had paid Kochi-based recruitment firm ‘Take Off’ Rs 2.3 lakh each (USD 3,156) each for the job offers. The two nurses refused to divulge details of their employment over safety concerns but thanked their employer as well as the police administration in Kerala. Two persons they accused of duping them have been arrested and taken to judicial custody in Kerala. Reena and Susan are happy that they got out of the trouble but at the same time, they were scared of the racket which they said was looking for them.
Dr Paithankar said most of the nurses who gave interviews to his group were still under the agents’ control. He said while the agents decide things for the nurses, they have also kept their passports and certificates and releasing them only selectively.
Meanwhile, the Indian Consulate in Dubai thanked the local authorities and the healthcare groups in a statement to Gulf News on Wednesday. It said the noble gesture has come at a time when the nurses are in a huge demand in the Covid-stricken world.
