Are nurses for export?

Is India treating nurses as an export commodity? A UK publication catering to nursing profession says it is.

Is India treating nurses as an export commodity? A British publication catering to the nursing profession says it is.

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Nursing Times reports that some developing countries now treat nurses as an export commodity that can earn vital overseas currency. "Some countries, such as the Philippines and India, deliberately over produce nurses with the intention of exporting them," it says.

"India, for example, is reported to have trained eight million nurses compared with just 3.8 million 10 years ago."

The economic appeal of coming to Britain is clear: it could take a nurse in India 10 years to earn what they could earn in Britain in a year.

Myrna Miaque, a Filipino nurse working at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, tells Nursing Times that she had previously worked for 17 years in the Middle East.

"In Saudi (Arabia), you just work and work and work," she says.

"It's not like here in London where you have study days and courses to develop yourself. A friend of mine came to (Britain) ahead of me and kept calling to say: 'Come and work here'."

It is not only Filipino nurses who are impressed by the National Health Service.

French general practitioners are being enticed to work in London by shorter hours, the fact that they do not have to work on-call and the greater opportunities for part time working, says another health industry publication, Pulse.

Researchers interviewed 31 French GPs working in London and found that they hated the 70-hour weeks in France.