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New US visa regime to benefit nurses
Senate approval for 50,000 visas for foreign nurses will open sluice gates for Indian nurses, reports S Rajagopalan.
It may be boom time for Indian nurses nursing an American dream. Recruiting organisations are on an overdrive following the recent Senate approval for 50,000 visas for foreign nurses and physical therapists to tide over an acute domestic shortage.
An Indian recruiting firm based in California says that India could be the second biggest beneficiary from this opening of the sluice gates after the Philippines, which has traditionally dominated the foreign nurses segment in the US.
The new wave of induction of nurses comes through an amendment to the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-first Century Act, enabling the "recapture" of 50,000 visas that could not be used over the past four years. President Bush has since signed the measure into law.
Processing of applications from India, the Philippines and China had ground to a halt last December, when the three countries had exhausted the visa quota allotted to them. The amendment clears the decks for resumption, and a step-up in recruitment.
To qualify, one must have a diploma from a nursing school and a current nursing licence in one's home country and must have passed the certificate examination conducted by the US's Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS).
They must also have at least one year of work experience and good English speaking skills by passing the TOEFL (Test of English as A Foreign Language) or the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) examination.
Laban Patnaik of RN India, the California-based recruitment firm, says the EB-3 visas (employment-based third preference immigrant visas) are the best bet for Indian nurses keen to shift to the US.
"Under this visa, they could get the green card within a period of eight to 13 months," he says, pointing out that nurses are "pre-certified" and spared the time-consuming labour certification procedure.
Several Indian recruiting firms are now training nurses for CGFNS, which now has examination centres in New Delhi, Bangalore and Kochi. Another centre will begin in Mumbai from November for the exams that are offered three or four times a year.
