Home ›› 25 Sep 2022 ›› Front
As a part of the government’s initiative to export skilled medical professionals abroad, sending Bangladeshi nurses to work at state-run hospitals in Kuwait has opened a new window to boost remittance inflow.
According to the Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL), the oil-rich Gulf nation will recruit around 1,000 nurses and medical technicians in six categories for different government hospitals in the first phase.
The Bangladesh government also plans to send more health professionals, especially nurses, to five other countries — Maldives, Japan, Qatar, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.
The countries have already shown interest to hire doctors, nurses, hygienists, caregivers and dental technicians from Bangladesh. Recently, Maldives also signed a memorandum of understanding with Bangladesh to recruit doctors and nurses.
BOESL officials said there are two other potential markets — the United Kingdom and Greece — for medical professional export.
As the first country, Kuwait has started recruiting nurses from Bangladesh to work at different public hospitals under Kuwait’s health ministry.
BOESL under the management of City Group General Trading Co of Kuwait and the Advanced Technology Company are jointly working to send the medical professionals to Kuwait.
So far, 267 skilled BSc and Diploma nurses have been sent to Kuwait over the last three months in four phases since the process started on June 19, according to BOESL Company Secretary SM Shafi Kamal.
On September 7, BOESL published another circular calling for applications to appoint 200 more BSc and diploma nurses, including 50 male nurses, at hospitals in Kuwait. Interested candidates can submit applications by November 4 through this link: https://forms.gle/z6ha6bzCt1NwppPe6.
A nurse starts a career with a Tk 20,000-30,000 monthly salary at a government hospital in Bangladesh but Kuwait offers Tk 80,000-90,000 to nurses and technicians. The tenure of the job is three years.
Apart from the monthly salary, they will get accommodations, yearly increments and travel expenditures from the employers and other facilities, including overtime, as per Kuwait’s labour law, according to the BOESL circular.
The candidates will have to be holders of BSc and Diploma certificates from any government-approved institution with experience of 30 months at government or private medical colleges, hospitals or institutions.
Authorities will scrutinise the necessary papers and candidates will be selected after written and oral exams for the jobs at hospitals in Kuwait.
Kamal told The Business Post that 267 nurses have been sent to Kuwait since June against a demand of around 1,000 nurses in the first phase.
“We are working to send nurses to other countries too from where both Bangladesh government and the nurses will be benefited as they are hiring with smart salaries and benefits,” he added.
Insiders said many countries are showing interest to hire Bangladeshi health professionals but there is a need to produce a large number of skilled nurses so that they can be sent abroad while meeting the demands at local hospitals and clinics.
Officials say there is no alternative to gaining more skills to unlock bigger markets such as the UK and others developed countries.
“We have a crisis of enough skilled nurses but we want to capture the global market as well. For that, we need to get ready by producing a huge number of qualified workforces in line with the global standard,” said an official.
BOESL Assistant General Manager (Business Promotion) Noman Chowdhury told The Business Post, “Kuwait government is now taking 1,000 nurses in the first phase but if the nurses deliver better performance, then their demand will increase manifold.”
“Many nurses from India, the Philippines and Pakistan are also working in Kuwait. If we capture a major portion of that market, it will be a great opportunity for our country,” he added.
Multitude of opportunities here too
Insiders say the nursing profession is now attracting students and gaining popularity in the country, owing to the availability of employment and the increase in job facilities in recent years.
Apart from serving people, the profession also has a bright future should one chooses it as a career.
Nursing was a Grade 3 job earlier in Bangladesh. The government has made it Grade 2 and there is also scope for nurses to be promoted to first-class officers.
According to the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), hospitals need to recruit three nurses against one doctor. But data from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) shows that the number of registered doctors in Bangladesh is 102,997.
According to the Bangladesh Nursing and Midwifery Council (BNMC), the number of registered nurses in the country is nearly 84,000. Under the circumstances, the country needs more than 300,000 nurses to meet a shortage of 75 per cent.
Bangladesh Nurses Association President Kamal Hossain Patwary told The Business Post that the move to export nurses is good news for the government and the nurses because both will be benefited from this.
“This will bring a huge amount of remittance to Bangladesh and the reputation of the country will increase through the good work our nurses do abroad,” he added.
