Germany starts recruiting nurses from Kerala
TRIVANDRUM: Kerala has started pre-departure training for nurses in association with the German Federal Employment Agency (GFEA).
NORKA-ROOTS, a government agency, has signed an agreement with the GFEA for recruiting nurses for Germany which is facing an acute shortage of skilled nurses.
NORKA-ROOTS is one of the two state-run agencies that have exclusive rights to recruit nurses abroad.
Officials led by Marcus Bircher, the GFEA’S international affairs director, interacted with short-listed nurses from here Friday, both inperson and online.
At the information session Insight 2022, they explained the life and work culture of Germany to 400 of some 13,000 applicants short-listed for nursing jobs.
Placement officers from Germany will interview the short-listed candidates here from May 4 and 13.
The GFEA will provide free language training to some 200 selected nurses who will get a visa ater gaining B1 level proficiency.
They can become a registered nurse with a B2 level language proficiency while working as an assistant nurse in Germany.
The agency had recently inked an agreement with the Norka-roots to recruit nurses under its Triple Win programme.
The agency now recruits nurses from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Philippines, Indonesia and Tunisia, besides Kerala in India.
Norka vice-chairman Sreeramakrishnan said the German deal will help the presence of Malayalee nurses grow exponentially in Europe.
“Malayalee nurses have a prominent presence in the health sector globally,” Sreeramakrishnan, a former speaker of the state legislative assembly, told Gulf Today.
“There are no countries without their presence. Because of them, Kerala has become a synonym for kindness for the people elsewhere.”
In 2015, the federal government banned private agencies from recruiting nurses and housemaids following widespread complaints.
The then chief minister Oommen Chandy took up the issue with late foreign minister Sushma Swaraj ater many nurses were trapped in wartorn Iraq and Libya.
A scam involving millions of rupees collected from nurses by a fly-by-night agent offering jobs abroad also surfaced during this time.
It also made it compulsory for overseas employers to register on the official portal emigrate. gov.in and recruit them only through government agencies. Besides Norka, the Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants (ODEPC) is the only agency authorised to recruit nurses in Kerala.