ARI Working Paper Series

This paper situates the practice of international recruitment of Indian nurses in the model of a ‘business process outsourcing’ of comprehensive training-cum-recruitment-cum-placement for non-traditional destinations like the UK, and USA through an agency system that has gained popularity in India.

The small sample survey of trainee nurses and informal interviews of other stakeholders revealed that both pull and push factors are at work in motivating Indian nurses to prepare themselves for migrating to ‘greener pastures’ abroad. This has been tapped as a profitable commercial opportunity in the private training-cum-recruiting agency hubs in cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Kochi where the agencies prepare the aspiring nurses for undertaking the eligibility and licensure tests. There has been a virtual absence of concern about this phenomenon in India as reflected in the complacent and indifferent attitude of the decision makers who manage and run the hospitals that are affected by the nurse exodus.

Gaps in data on nursing education, employment, and migration as well as non-standardization of definitions of ‘registered nurse’ are two major handicaps in analyzing international migration of nurses from India, and this needs to be paid immediate attention. Also, standardization of definitions as per international norms, mutual recognition of nursing qualifications across countries, and putting the nurses – the main stakeholders in their international migration – in the centre-stage of policy objectives would help innovating tools that would effectively supplement the ethical recruitment practices and plug loopholes.