The news that 267 nurses will be taking up employment in various state-run hospitals in Kuwait may look like a tiny glint to signal a new horizon in overseas employment. That a qualified professional group has made it to workplace abroad also points to the prospect of more such job offers for professionals from overseas employers in future, maybe in the near future. It has been learnt that Kuwait is the first country to recruit nurses from Bangladesh to work at different public hospitals under Kuwait's health ministry.
The demand for medical professionals in different countries including in Kuwait has increased since the outbreak of the Covid-19. Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) has been reportedly saying that Kuwait is eager to hire more nurses as early as possible. According to a BOESL spokesperson, the Gulf nation will recruit around 1,000 nurses and medical technicians in six categories for different government hospitals in the first phase. There are also indications of hiring health professionals by some other countries including Maldives, Japan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The countries have reportedly shown interest in hiring doctors, nurses, hygienists, caregivers and dental technicians from Bangladesh. Recently, Maldives signed a memorandum of understanding with Bangladesh to recruit doctors and nurses. If these are indicative of increased job prospect for medical professionals abroad, there indeed should be reasons to look up to a change in overseas employment. Ever since job markets in the Gulf countries opened up decades ago, it was predominantly the unskilled workforce that unfortunately has been the highlight of workers' migration from Bangladesh. High migration cost, low wage, excessive workload, lack of medical attention, poor accommodation and so on formed the key features of this pallid narrative.
There were occasional attempts to send professionals, particularly medical professionals, but those did not materialise. Now that the process has begun, it is expected that the concerned agencies will try to put in place required facilitations towards easing employment and migration of the jobseekers. These among others may include negotiation with the employers towards securing the rights and privileges of the incumbents, scrutinising the job contracts taking care of all personal and job-related necessities, dissemination workshop and brief training programme conducted by competent personnel prior to departure. The good thing is that the nurses are being recruited without any migration cost.
What, however, may stand in the way is the dearth of medical professionals, particularly graduate nurses, in the country. In order to meet overseas demand, there is the need to produce a large pool of qualified and skilled nurses so that they can be sent abroad after meeting the demands at local hospitals and clinics. Although there are reportedly several thousand nurses without employment in the country, meeting overseas demand will require qualified and skilled hands to secure employment. Primarily, it is the government's job to ensure that an adequate number of nurses are produced in the training institutes. Over and above, a good deal depends on the satisfactory performance of those who have already left.