Hundreds of Kerala nurses duped by job scam in UAE

Even because the demand for nurses and different healthcare professionals surges around the globe in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, a scam of fraudulent brokers duping tons of of nurses from Kerala in the United Arab Emirates was just lately unearthed. Several nurses have discovered themselves stranded in the Arab nation after being lured by unscrupulous brokers with guarantees of well-paying jobs.
“The victims fell prey to unscrupulous brokers who lured them to the UAE with false guarantees. They went to the nation via an unlawful route with guests’ visas which doesn’t allow them to work there. We are in the method of investigating the modus operandi of these criminals in addition to serving to the victims,” an official from NORKA Roots, the Kerala state authorities company in cost of the welfare of NRIs from the state, advised TIMESOFINDIA.com.
According to the principles launched by the ministry of external affairs, all recruits for abroad jobs which require emigration clearance, the overseas employer and the authorised and licensed agent need to register themselves on the federal government eMigrate portal and get all mandatory clearances and paperwork earlier than candidates can go abroad.
The NORKA official added that whereas there was an enormous surge in demand for healthcare professionals from Kerala in Gulf international locations as a result of pandemic and enormous vaccination necessities, there have been additionally impediments as a result of of journey restrictions, quarantine guidelines and delay in processing papers on account of massive quantity of functions. “This has led to an enormous enhance in unlawful actions and scams of sending healthcare staff to the UAE,” the official mentioned.
NORKA ROOTS is the one state-run company, below the federal government of Kerala, authorised by the ministry of exterior affairs to facilitate abroad recruitment of totally different classes of staff from the state together with nurses, docs, technicians, and housemaids for overseas employers in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) international locations.
Several healthcare companies firms in the UAE have now stepped as much as lend a serving to hand to the Indian nurses who’ve fallen prey to the current recruitment scam and are stranded in the overseas nation. For occasion, VPS Healthcare, one of the most important healthcare teams in the UAE, has offered job presents to 90 of these nurses and healthcare staff. Forty-one healthcare staff have already joined VPS hospitals in totally different Emirates.
Ambily Mangattukunnel Balakrishnan is one such sufferer. A educated and registered nurse from Kottayam in Kerala and mom of a seven-year-old, Balakrishnan was lured by a job supply she discovered on a social media website.
“The commercial promised a job for vaccination responsibility in Dubai at a wage of 4,500 Dirhams per thirty days and free lodging and meals. I used to be lured by the wage as a result of I’ve to help my household,” Balakrishnan advised TIMESOFINDIA.com. She needed to pay the agent Rs 2 lakh and arrived in Dubai on a customer visa in March together with many different nurses.
“We have been initially requested to remain in quarantine for 2 weeks and even after that, there have been no efforts to present us supply letters or place us in hospitals. We additionally realised then that we didn’t have the required licences to work right here and had been duped,” she added. However, Balakrishnan is now relieved as she’s obtained a job at a VPS hospital. The group has been receiving job functions from a number of nurses who’re stranded in UAE over the previous 4 weeks.
“We have given particular consideration to eligible healthcare staff who’ve been trapped for a very long time and are dealing with monetary points. Forty-one well being staff who’ve accomplished the method of a particular interview have already joined the hospitals below VPS Healthcare,” Sanjai Kumar, chief human assets officer at VPS Healthcare, mentioned. Healthcare staff who should not have a sound medical licence will be part of the hospital as a affected person aide or service assistant.
VPS Healthcare chairman and managing director, Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, has additionally instructed his crew to offer all doable help to certified trainee nurses to acquire licences.
“We can be helping them in processing the required licences. In addition to those that had already joined us, 49 extra can be becoming a member of our medical crew upon issuance of employment visas. All the related bills, together with their RT-PCR assessments and the same old regulatory bills, are being taken care of by VPS Healthcare as a particular case,” Kumar added.
Dr S Irudaya Rajan, an knowledgeable on immigration points and chairman of the International Institute of Migration and Development in Trivandrum, feels that the central authorities ought to chill out the coverage of migration for healthcare staff from Kerala and recognise some of the dependable non-public brokers to course of documentation after checking their credentials.
“Many nurses in Kerala have spent rather a lot of cash on their training and coaching and have taken huge loans. They now have a chance to work abroad in a post-Covid situation when healthcare companies are in nice demand,” Rajan mentioned. “But the federal government course of of going to work abroad is cumbersome and takes a very long time, which is why many are falling prey to scams.”
Meanwhile, in keeping with a report by PTI from Kochi, the Kerala Police final Saturday took recruiting company proprietor Firoz Khan and his two aides into custody for fraud. Khan’s recruiting company, Take Off, had flown nurses to the UAE on a go to visa as a substitute of a piece visa as required.
They have been taken into custody from Kozhikode whereas making an attempt to flee to Delhi. The three have been caught primarily based on a criticism registered by Reena Rajan, a nurse from Kollam‘s Pathanapuram. She approached the company after recognizing an advert on recruitment of nurses to the UAE. Over 500 nurses have been cheated by the company, nurses Reena Rajan and Susan Saji mentioned in a criticism to the chief minister of Kerala and the police.

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