Indian hospitals in Gulf offer jobs to evacuated nurses

Several Indian-owned hospitals in West Asia have offered to provide jobs to the 46 nurses evacuated from Iraq on Saturday.

Many hospitals run by NRIs in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries have told the Kerala Government that they were ready to employ the nurses, provided they have the required documents and satisfy the hiring norms of the respective countries.

The 46 nurses who arrived at Kochi from Erbil airport in the Kurdistan region of Iraq to an overwhelming reception by the relatives, government officials, politicians and media persons, were not been paid salaries for months together. Most of them have been working in a government-owned 600-bed hospital in Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, for less than a year.

They had incurred an expense of around ₹2 lakh each to get the job.

They were offered a monthly salary in the range of ₹40,000 and ₹60,000, but those who had joined the hospital two to three months before were not paid salaries.

The nurses — 45 from Kerala and one from Tamil Nadu — told media persons that they do not want to go back to Iraq even if the civil war ends, but most were willing to work in other Gulf countries. This is mainly because the salary and working conditions are very poor in India.

The Tikrit hospital was occupied by the Iraqi rebel forces nearly four weeks before the evacuation. The nurses said about 150 rebel troops were stationed at the hospital and most of the doctors, Iraqi staff and patients had left after the occupation.

They, however, said the rebels were extremely decent with them, provided them food and other daily needs. Even when they were moved to Mosul from the Tiktrit hospital on Thursday, the rebels behaved well.

They believe the shift was to save the nurses from possible bombing.

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