More respect, exposure to other cultures and the excellent pay packages that nurses command in the developed countries are the factors that motivated her to study further. She upgraded her diploma course into a degree last year through the Canadian Institute of International Studies, Mohali, and cleared IELTS to be eligible for working abroad.
“In the civilian set-up, nurses in India still do not command the kind of respect they should get. In countries like New Zealand and Australia, as there is an acute shortage of nurses, the profession is well respected and well paid. I was feeling saturated in my job here and hence decided to try another country,” said Kaur.
From the young diploma holders to nurses with a decade of experience, all are equally enthusiastic to explore greener pastures.
Kanchan Chugh, a staff nurse with a leading government hospital and more than 10 years of experience, has zeroed down on the UK as her destination .
“Compared to the private set-up, the government sector here pays reasonably decent as the salary of a staff nurse in a hospital draws between Rs 16,000 and 17,000 a month. Whereas the private hospitals are exploiting the nurses as some of them pay as less as Rs 3,000 a month. Compare it with the countries like the US, UK and Australia, nurses easily get more than Rs 1 lakh a month,” she said.
Faculty at the CIIS, Mohali, Shama Lohni said the nurses now prefer to get their family settled by getting jobs abroad. “In the last batch, we had two women above the age of 50 who are now working in the countries of their choice. The women in that age think about settlement of their entire families as nurses are in high demand in the developed countries.”