THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India: (Left) Dr Jamal Mansour Al-Harbi, Oommen Chandy, Dr Mahmoud Al-Abdulhadi and K C Joseph during a meeting.

KUWAIT: Kuwait's Ministry of Health (MoH) has agreed to recruit nurses from India through India government's e-migrate system of recruiting nurses for its hospitals. A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting between a visiting Kuwaiti delegation and Kerala government officials in Thiruvananthapuram recently. The MoH is in the process of recruiting at least 1,000 nurses from India in 2016, it is learned.

The Kuwait delegation consisted of Dr Mahmoud Al-Abdulhadi, assistant undersecretary for legal affairs at MoH, and Dr Jamal Mansour Al-Harbi, assistant undersecretary for medical services affairs at MoH. The Kuwaiti delegation held discussions with Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Minister for Non-Resident Keralites' Affairs K C Joseph and other officials.

Indian Ambassador Sunil Jain told Kuwait Times yesterday that the Kuwaiti delegation's visit came as a sequel to a similar visit by an Indian delegation recently to Kuwait to finalize the modalities of the recruitment process. An Indian delegation comprising Principal Secretary, Labor, Tom Jose, Norka Secretary Rani George, Chief Executive Officer R S Kannan and ODEPC managing director Dr G L Muralidharan had visited Kuwait in March and held talks with ministry of health officials.

Tests and interviews

According to the decision in Kerala, the officials of the health ministry will directly conduct the licensing tests and interviews to select the candidates. It was decided to advise the contracting agencies and private establishments recruiting nurses in Kuwait to get themselves registered in the e-migrate system. The health ministry will take the initiative to convene a meeting of agencies in Kuwait to brief them on the e-migrate system and the recruitment procedures.

The representatives of the state-owned agencies would be invited to the meetings. Steps to launch the recruitment process through the government-owned agencies for recruitment of nurses for employment in the MoH will be initiated immediately. The Kuwaiti government's decision to utilize the services of state-owned agencies will be a great relief to potential candidates who were being exploited until recently by private recruiting agencies both in India and Kuwait.

The Indian government at the center took a crucial decision a year ago to regulate the recruitment of Indian nurses through government agencies. Indian Embassy in Kuwait led by Ambassador Jain also played a significant role in implementing the Indian government decision, effectively curbing large-scale corruption and cheating in nursing recruitment.

By Sajeev Peter