Latest news with #InternationalNursesDay
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Business Standard
26-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Rs 30,000 to Rs 3 lakh: More Indian nurses going abroad to earn 5x more
Indian nurses are increasingly seeking employment opportunities abroad, driven by a global shortage of healthcare professionals and the promise of better pay and working conditions. Countries like Germany, Ireland, Malta, the UAE, and Belgium are actively recruiting Indian nurses, offering competitive salaries and additional perks. For instance data provided by BorderPlus, a workforce mobility platform, shows a nurse in Germany can expect an initial monthly salary of €2,700 (approximately Rs 2.6 lakh), which can rise to €3,300 (around Rs 3.2 lakh) post-licensure—significantly higher than the Rs 20,000–40,000 typically earned in Indian private hospitals . This trend is facilitated by agencies like BorderPlus, which assist nurses in securing overseas positions. The demand for Indian nurses is particularly high in areas such as critical care, geriatrics, and prenatal services . To attract more professionals, several countries have eased entry requirements, including language proficiency and licensing exams. Earlier this month, BorderPlus announced a commitment of Rs 10 crore in scholarships over the next two years to support Indian nurses pursuing international careers. The initiative, revealed on International Nurses Day, is aimed at helping deserving and aspiring nurses navigate global career pathways by addressing barriers such as exam costs, documentation challenges, and lack of structured guidance. To support this initiative on the ground, BorderPlus also inaugurated its first regional Training and Support Centre in Kochi. The facility currently supports over 120 candidates and plans to expand its capacity to more than 500. Services include in-person exam preparation, counselling, and documentation support. Digital offerings from the Kochi centre will further extend assistance to nurses across Kerala and neighbouring states. The centre is operated by a local franchisee partner, with enrolments already underway. The company will also introduce digital-first solutions to streamline hiring, improve language training and ensure seamless integration for healthcare professionals. However, this migration has implications for India's healthcare system. With a nurse-to-population ratio of 1.96 per 1,000, India falls short of the WHO's recommended 3 per 1,000 . The exodus of nurses exacerbates this shortage, particularly in rural and underserved areas. Experts suggest that improving domestic working conditions, offering competitive salaries, and expanding training facilities are essential steps to retain nursing talent within the country . Citing figures from the regulatory body Indian Nursing Council, Association of Healthcare Providers (India) director general Dr Girdhar Gyani said last week there are more than 33 lakh nursing personnel registered in the country but this figure is dismal given India's 1.3 billion population. ''With 1.96 nurses per 1,000 population, India falls short of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended rate of three nurses per 1,000 population,'' he was quoted as saying by PTI. Director of the Ujala Cygnus Group of Hospitals, Dr Shuchin Bajaj told PTI, "While the shortage of nurses and their massive emigration to foreign countries is a cause for worry, there is a need to train them at home, especially amid the advent of health tech and other technologies." "The challenges are more persistent in Tier-2 and 3 cities, where there is a lack of a trained healthcare force despite the establishment of state-of-the-art hospitals or health facilities. Apart from that, the nursing community also looks forward to greater support from the government," he added. Why are Indian nurses in demand overseas? Indian nurses are in demand because of their strong clinical skills, English proficiency, and willingness to relocate. Agencies like BorderPlus help them transition smoothly by arranging jobs, visas, and even language training. How much do they earn overseas? Germany: Starting salary of €2,700/month (₹2.6 lakh), increasing to €3,300 (₹3.2 lakh) after licensure Ireland: Offers €1,700–2,500/month (₹1.7–2.5 lakh) Malta and ???????? Belgium offer similar packages UAE: Starting salaries around ₹75,000–1.5 lakh/month, plus tax-free income and perks According to Kerala government-run Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants (ODEPC), the salary offers from Dubai have more than doubled from 4,000-5,000 dirhams (Rs 80,000- Rs 1 lakh) to 10,000-12,000 dirhams (Rs 2 lakh-2.4 lakh). In comparison, many private hospitals in India pay just ₹20,000–40,000/month. For nurses, this is a no-brainer. It is estimated that Germany will need an additional 150,000 nurses in 2025. To overcome the shortage, there is an urgent need for structured and transparent hiring pathways to ensure a sustainable healthcare workforce in the region. To meet such growing demand, Germany aims to recruit 500,000 nurses by 2030, which facilitates ethical and structured migration pathways for healthcare workers. In April 2025, BorderPlus has acquired German healthcare recruitment firm Onea Care. With this acquisition, the company aims to formalise Germany's fragmented healthcare recruitment sector by facilitating skilled talent from India through "transparent and trustworthy" routes. Prior to the acquisition, Onea was sourcing talent from markets like Brazil, North Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, the Middle East, and Philippines. Now, the company will start positioning India as its primary market for sourcing candidates. 'It (the acquisition) also allows us to expand our sourcing to markets where Onea was operational in. We will now have multi-sourcing ability into Germany, which gives us more diversity and prevents over-indexing on the Indian market,' said Mayank Kumar, founder of BorderPlus.
The Citizen
25-05-2025
- Health
- The Citizen
Lenmed thanks its unsung heroes in scrubs
On May 12, the nurses at Lenmed Randfontein Private Hospital gathered to celebrate International Nurses Day under the theme 'Caring for Nurses, Strengthens the Economy'. • Also read: Celebrating nurses: Silent heroes in scrubs Matron Bernedette Jewaskiewitz of the hospital explained, 'It was a powerful reminder that our nurses are not only the heart of healthcare but also vital contributors to the strength and well-being of our communities and the economy at large. The day is a moment set aside each year to honour nurses not only for what they do but for who they are.' She further noted it was a celebration of the nurses' dedication to care. As a management team, they believe that caring for the nurses will also empower them to care for their own well-being and growth. They hosted a formal breakfast with an inspirational guest speaker and the management team sharing motivational words. They also took a moment to reflect on the Nurses' Pledge, which is a symbol of the values and ethics that guide them. Each nurse received a gift of a mini garden with vegetable seeds, meant to symbolise the seeds that nurses sow – seeds of kindness, care, and compassion. They hope their nurses will nurture themselves and their gardens as they nurture patients every day. 'Our goal was simple: to remind each nurse that they are seen, valued, and essential, not only on May 12 but every single day. Nurses are the backbone of healthcare, and their healing hands and hearts have a lasting impact that technology or tools can never replicate. A nurse's touch is irreplaceable,' said Bernedette. She added they would like the community to know, behind every nurse's uniform is a person, a parent, a sibling, a friend. 'They have families, they experience exhaustion, and they feel deeply. A small gesture of kindness, a simple 'thank you', or a word of encouragement can make a world of difference. It's easy to forget the emotional and physical toll the profession can take, but our appreciation should be constant.' She mentioned this was not their first celebration of International Nurses Day and definitely not their last. 'Instead, it is an ongoing tribute to their caring touch and their commitment to humanity.' At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Daily Maverick
22-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Maverick
Nursing in South Africa: A passionate calling under siege by budget cuts and safety risks
Groote Schuur Hospital's first male nursing manager, Aghmat Mohamed, reflects on the pressures of nursing in South Africa. Before International Nurses Day and the release of a major global report on the state of nursing, Spotlight chatted to him about his decades on the front lines of healthcare. Nurses cradle new life with tender hands and soothe those at the end of it. Yet despite their tireless grace, they're underpaid and risk getting stabbed and robbed on their way to work, says Aghmat Mohamed. After three decades in nursing, including nine years supervising 1,600 nurses as Director of Nursing Services at Groote Schuur Hospital, he considers himself an ambassador for the profession. While expressing deep passion for his work, Mohamed does not mince his words when outlining challenges in the field. This includes a 26,000 nursing shortfall across South Africa's public and private sectors, an ageing work force, training system bottlenecks, uneven distribution of nurses — particularly in rural areas — and simply not enough investment from the government. He said that while nursing shortages in South Africa were nothing new, this pressure was exacerbated by annual budget cuts at public hospitals. 'Currently, we are 26,000 nurses short in the country,' he told Spotlight. 'That's a lot of nurses. And yet, it is expected that the show must go on. Posts are being cut, the money's getting less, and there is this full-on expectation of nurses to continue delivering quality care.' Groote Schuur, Cape Town's tertiary public hospital giant with just under 1,000 beds, lost 70 professional nurse posts due to budget cuts just last year, said Mohamed. 'Money is the problem,' he said. 'Most of any organisation's budget is staffing, between 60 and 70%. So the easiest way to decrease costs is by cutting staff. We've had budget cuts every single year. I mean, last year I lost 70 posts — professional nurses, just like that. So how do you continue to deliver quality patient care?' Plugging holes Mohamed noted that at Groote Schuur they were 532 nurses short across units that provided a 24/7 nursing service. 'And it's the kind of battles that leadership like myself face every single day, trying to plug the holes. Every day we need to compensate for those missing 532 nurses, for example, by using agency nurses, and overtime for our already exhausted and burnt-out nurses.' He explains how nursing agencies work: 'Out of that 532, for argument's sake let's say 15 of them are Intensive Care Unit (ICU) specialist nurses, so every day we must get 15 nurses for ICU from agencies.… It's different nurses from different agencies each day and it's not ideal because you don't know who you are getting, you don't know how experienced they are. So these are additional stresses that managers in the hospital deal with.' The concept of 'patient acuity' is used to allocate nursing resources, he says. This refers to the severity of a patient's condition determining their priority and level of care. A calling but also a profession Commenting on the professionalisation of nursing, Mohamed notes how the scope of nursing as a profession is ever-expanding, without adjusted remuneration. He points out how in a primary healthcare system, nurses are responsible for more patient care than ever. 'Clinics are run by nurses,' he says. 'We bring children into the world, we hold the hands of dying people. When there isn't a doctor, the next best thing is to give the task to a nurse. And that's fine, because we love what we do. And we try to make sure that we're upskilled to be able to do these tasks. But the thing is, for decades, we've allowed this to happen: the scope of nursing is expanding and expanding, but the money's not getting more. So you have more responsibility, are more accountable, but nobody's talking more money.' Mohamed added that nursing was a profession governed by a nursing council and tertiary qualifications, and ought to be respected and paid accordingly. 'You would be surprised how many nurses with PhDs are at the bedside, because they want to be. They just love being with patients. So nursing is a calling, certainly, but it can't be mahala (without payment). We need to be properly remunerated.' State of the world's nursing On Monday, 12 May 2025 — International Nurses Day — the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) released the State of the World's Nursing 2025 report. Much in the report echoes Mohamed's arguments, placing South Africa's nursing challenges in a global context. The report notes: 'While professionalisation can improve care quality, it should be accompanied by differentiated roles, scopes of practice, and corresponding compensation in work settings, to not fuel nurse migration to countries that offer better professional opportunities.' Greener pastures Figures quoted in the report suggest that one in seven nurses worldwide — and 23% in high-income countries — are foreign-born, highlighting the migration of nurses to wealthier countries. South Africa is considered an upper-middle-income country, with an estimated 8% of nurses being foreign-born. Mohamed can attest. After working as a nurse at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and some community health centres in Cape Town, in 2004 he accepted a job at St James's Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. To his surprise, the hospital paid for his studies at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and a Master of Science degree in leadership. 'I always knew I wanted to work abroad,' he says. 'When I left, it was supposed to be for two years, but that became 10… Literally, doors just opened up for me, like, wow! I was so fortunate, I didn't spend a cent on these two degrees. So this is how first world countries retain staff; opportunities lead to job satisfaction.' Mohamed said healthcare employers in wealthy countries snapped up South African nursing graduates. Graduates who specialised in ICU, the operating theatre, trauma and emergency, psychiatry and oncology, were in high demand worldwide. He argued the only remedy to retain graduates was South Africa's government creating better working conditions for nurses and job incentives. 'So the government must look at ways of investing in nursing. We need a national strategy. Why is this not prioritised? I want to see more strategies from the government — national government, not just provincial government.' The WHO report attests similarly around domestic investment. 'Low- and middle-income countries are facing challenges in graduating, employing, and retaining nurses in the health system and will need to raise domestic investments to create and sustain jobs,' it reads. Dwindling workforce To start with, South Africa's nursing graduation rate is low. The report notes that 70 552 students enrolled in nursing education in South Africa, with only 3,154 graduating annually. This very low number might, among others, be attributed to recent regulatory and accreditation bottlenecks in the tertiary system, as previously reported by Spotlight. (According to our back-of-the-envelope calculation, there should be about 17,5000 graduations per year given that training typically lasts four years. This calculation excludes people who drop out of training.) The report also notes South Africa's ageing workforce, with only 4% of nursing staff aged under 35, and 33% aged over 55. This raises critical red flags for future staffing. Safety concerns Furthermore, the report states that of the global nursing workforce, 85% are female. In South Africa, this is slightly higher at 90%. Speaking to Spotlight in the lounge of his home in upper Woodstock in Cape Town, a few blocks away from Groote Schuur, Mohamed outlines urgent safety concerns for his staff, whose shifts are from 7am to 7pm, and 7pm to 7am. 'It is expensive to live here (near the hospital) and I can't expect a staff nurse or an assistant nurse to be able to afford even a room around here. So these women travel far to get to work, getting into a taxi at 4am, or walking to get a bus with two or three changes. They get robbed, they get stabbed, they get assaulted. So safety is another big issue. I mean, nursing is a calling and that's fine, but in a country like ours, your safety should come first.' Reflecting on being Groote Schuur's first male nursing manager, Mohamed shrugs, exuding pride and confidence in his position. He intends to celebrate International Nurses Day with a formal event and gift boxes for his staff. 'We take any opportunity to boost morale, you can see the effect in people's facial expressions,' he said. Manenberg inspiration As a child growing up in Manenberg, Mohamed said that in the mornings he would stand on a kist (chest) at their front window watching the neighbours — two nurses in crisp uniforms — leave for work. 'They were two sisters,' he recalled. 'I used to be very curious about them; the way they dressed, the way the community admired them. I was fascinated. I used to stand up on the kist watching them walk up the road to catch the bus.' Back then, it was safe for them to walk in the dark, he said. In a poetic twist of fate, one of the neighbours who inspired Mohamed as a child, Sister Shahieda Kader, was now among his staff at Groote Schuur. Additional inspiration in his formative years was a district nurse who cared for his grandmother, who had a foot wound due to diabetes. 'The district nurse would interact with my grandmother and bring a smile to her face. The wound wouldn't heal, but when the nurse came to our house, we saw how she made that wound better! And eventually my gran was able to walk again. This woman, she brought hope into our family,' he recalled. Mohamed started his diploma in general nursing at the former Nico Malan Nursing College in 1995, followed by more qualifications. Today, with five bars on his nursing epaulettes, he remains involved in Manenberg. Along with friends, he organises a year-end party for up to 350 elderly people each year. 'It's because of these older people that we are who we are today,' he says. 'You know, they were our role models, so I always feel like I owe them something.' DM
The Citizen
20-05-2025
- Health
- The Citizen
The healing hands patients rely on
The Gauteng Department of Health called for all hands on deck to protect nurses and other health workers and to create a conducive working environment, as the country joined the global community to commemorate International Nurses Day, which was observed on May 12. • Also read: Celebrating International Nurse's Day According to departmental spokesperson Foster Mohale, nurses are the backbone of any healthcare system, serving as the main point of contact for patients and an important link between patients and the care they need. 'They also play a critical role in counselling and educating patients and their families about their health conditions, available treatment plans, and self-care strategies. Nurses continue to face various workplace safety threats in the line of duty, both physically and verbally, from patients and community members. In recent months and years, the country has experienced disgraceful incidents of heinous acts involving robbery and sexual assault against nurses, mainly in primary health facilities.' Foster added that the department recognises the importance of a healthy and well-supported nursing workforce in delivering quality healthcare services to achieve health outcomes, including increased life expectancy and reduced maternal, infant, and child mortality. 'For this reason, the department appeals to all stakeholders in society to join hands with the government, law enforcement agencies, and various community-based structures to make health facilities safer places for nurses to carry out their duties of caring for the sick and providing much- needed comprehensive healthcare without fear of becoming victims of crime.' The 2025 International Nurses Day was commemorated under the theme 'Our Nurses. Our Future. Caring for nurses strengthens economies', which emphasises the significance of a healthy nursing workforce in providing high-quality care, improving healthcare systems, and increasing economic resilience on a global scale. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Khaleej Times
20-05-2025
- Health
- Khaleej Times
Dubai: Sheikh Hamdan announces Golden Visa for nurses
Dubai will now offer golden visas to nurses employed with Dubai Health who have served for more than 15 years under the directives of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defence of the UAE. The announcement, which came on Monday, aims to recognise their invaluable contributions to the community and their crucial role in advancing the quality of healthcare services. Appreciating their hard work and unwavering commitment to the profession, Sheikh Hamdan has granted the long-term residency permit to more than 1,400 nurses from Dubai Health. He emphasised that nursing staff are at the forefront of the healthcare system and serve as essential partners in realising the vision of a healthier society and improved quality of life. He commended their daily dedication to patient care and commitment to the wellbeing of others, affirming that Dubai values excellence and honours those who serve with dedication. This directive coincides with International Nurses Day, observed annually on May 12, underscoring the leadership's ongoing commitment to supporting healthcare professionals and fostering an environment that empowers them to continue serving the community. This is not the first time that nursing staff in the UAE have been recognised for their hard work and dedication to the field. In November of 2021, a government directive was announced to grant Golden Visas to frontline workers and their families. In more recent times, Dubai also announced Golden Visas for outstanding private school teachers. The announcement had come from Sheikh Hamdan on the occasion of World Teachers Day on October 5, 2024.
