Indian hospitals witnessed low occupancy rate in the last 6-8 months owing to COVID-19 virus at its peak. Elective surgeries, follow-up cases even patients with life threatening conditions were hesitant to reach out to hospitals with the fear of likely to be infected with the virus. COVID-19 gradually receding & vaccination shot administered to majority of the health care workers the near normalcy is being achieved in most of the hospitals.
Another shocker has come from Nurses in the form of many are migrating to Gulf. The young, bright, unmarried nurses are looking at Dubai for a short period to administer the COVID vaccination shot to its population. In particular, the Dubai looks more green pasture & lucrative for the Indian nurses. Bengaluru based city nursing homes are facing the brunt of it, as these nursing homes function with bare minimum of trained nurses. In the last couple of days private nursing homes are feeling the heat of shortage of nurses and their functioning is being slowly paralysed due to shortage of nurses.
Dubai is offering attractive pay, perks for its vaccination program. As the country runs acute shortage of nurses to fulfil the vaccination administration program. Unmarried nurses are being attracted by experience of working in an another country, by being part of vaccination mission, attractive salary package for a short stint. On their arrival back home, nurses are easily absorbed by many Indian hospitals with higher salary as they are exposed to better working conditions.
It is reported that over 7,00,000 Indian nurses work in various hospitals abroad. The country is facing a shortage of 25 lakh nurses for its both public & private hospitals (WHO 2010). Drive of nurses to Dubai is a just beginning many more nurses may queue up to other countries. Gulf is experiencing acute shortage of nurses to fulfil the vaccination coverage to its citizens. Trained in vaccination program, Indian nurses come as handy without causing major financial burden to Gulf countries.
Even if government makes all efforts and recall all the nurses from abroad still the country will have shortage of nurses. The attractive salary, respect, better working conditions, growth and incentives make them to look to USA, Australia, UK & New Zealand. India is next to Philippines who has maximum number of trained nurses’ international migration.
Indian nurses are preferred over others as they have robust nursing training, sound knowledge of clinical conditions, very well exposed to huge number of patients, variety of clinical cases, sharp at skills, good examination procedures, English speaking advantage & will to serve with smile is their hall mark.
Nurses who are trained in vaccination program looking at Gulf is a major cause of concern which needs immediate attention and address by Health policy makers.
