Health care groups import nurses to boost numbers

by Nondumiso Mbuyazi THE shortage of skilled medical staff in South Africa has resulted in three of the country’s major health care companies all now recruiting nurses from India. The health care companies are Medi-Clinic, Life Group and Netcare. They have recruited 350 nurses, and according to them, intend recruiting even more. Life Group general director of human resources Peter Scott said they had recruited 50 nurses who were due to arrive next year. Scott said the shortage of nurses was quite “severe” and so they were trying to bring the first group of nurses into the country as soon as possible. He said that besides recruiting the Indian nurses, they were also trying to lure back South African nurses who are working in other countries. “We have been trying to get our own nurses back for the past two years and we have been partially successful. Some have returned, but it is still not the number we need,” he explained. The nursing director of Netcare, Eileen Branigan, said the nurses she had interviewed in southern India were all eager to move to South Africa. The registration process with the nursing council would take six to eight months. Branigan said nursing was still a calling in India and their nurses still had “a nursing quality of compassion”. Scott said the male and female nurses from India were educated, highly skilled and proficient in English.