Labor experts have warned that plans to recruit nurses from Nepal to help fill the NHS shortage will put workers at an “unacceptable risk” of exploitation and should be halted until safeguards are in place.
The UK has been accused of forging ahead with its hiring spree despite concerns about abusive practices by Nepalese recruitment agencies, notorious for charging illegal fees that leave workers heavily indebted.
The deal between the government and the government, which was signed last month despite Nepal being placed on the WHO’s “red list” of recruitment, will start with a first pilot involving around 100 recruits, but could see thousands of nurses and healthcare workers move to the UK from Nepal. over the next few years.
The Department of Health has hailed the scheme as an “ethical” initiative that will allow “managed” employment to fill a shortage in the UK. A memorandum of understanding states that no fees should be charged to workers and that recruitment will be overseen by an “implementation unit” run by the Nepalese government. But critics accuse the ministers of neglecting Nepal’s abusive recruitment practices. They say safeguards are necessary to protect workers from exploitation.
In May, a study conducted by the Nepal-based Baha Social Sciences Institute found that about 40% of Nepalese interested in working abroad seek the help of illegal agents. That same month, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that Nepalese fruit pickers are routinely charged up to £5,000 in illegal fees for jobs working on UK farms as part of the government’s seasonal workers scheme. Many of them take informal loans that they are struggling to repay.
Evidence collected by observer He points out that agencies operating in Kathmandu have started offering job search services to candidates seeking NHS jobs – despite a pledge not to charge any workers.
Facebook ads targeting Nepalese workers, which ran on the platform last week, offered advisory services, including app support and access to a “sponsor database” of candidates looking for jobs in the UK. A second ad offered ‘online training’ for nurses and claimed it offered the ‘best route to the UK’.
Other advertisements indicate that recruitment agencies have been targeting nurses in Nepal for months, despite being placed on the red list, which requires active non-recruitment due to the potential impact on the country’s fragile health system. Nepal has 21 nurses per 10,000 people, compared to 84 in the UK per 10,000.
“Systematic corruption” means that “in reality in Nepal there are illegal agents involved in every step of migration,” said Andy Hall, an independent migrant rights specialist based in Nepal. He said many of those charging the fees had links to UK-based companies. Hall and other critics, including the British-Nepal Friendship Society, have called for third-party oversight and the involvement of human rights experts to ensure that hiring does not lead to worker exploitation. “Just because the Ministry of Health says, ‘Everything is fine,’ is not acceptable,” he said.
In a rare intervention this weekend, the World Health Organization expressed support for practical precautions, saying it was an “excellent suggestion”.
Jim Campbell, Director of the Health Workforce at WHO, said: “We strongly encourage the UK and Nepal to accept some of these comments and to take all mitigating measures to ensure there are protections for workers’ rights, protection from fees and protection from poor working conditions.”
He said that having third-party oversight or input from human rights organizations would “help the government understand the lived experiences of workers to ensure good practices are followed”. “It will be a guarantee for the workers in this case,” he said. “You have to make sure that this behavior is not allowed to start, and if it is, it will be immediately identified and removed from the bilateral agreement.”
Siobhan Mulally, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, said that charging recruitment fees could put a “significant burden on workers, leading to debt-bondage-like conditions”. “This is a concern in many sectors and should be looked at in the healthcare sector,” she said. “The problem often is that we have words on paper but guarantees are not implemented in practice.”
The Ministry of Health said that it would be inappropriate for bilateral discussions to be supervised by a third party and that it would engage appropriate stakeholders while implementing the pilot plan. She said no British recruitment agencies would be involved in the initial phase, adding that the process at the end of Nepal was an “issue for the Nepali government”.
The agreement is part of an international recruitment drive to address the shortage of 50,000 nurses and midwives in the UK. It is the first employment deal to be signed with a country on the World Health Organization’s Red List.
Pat Cullen, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said it was an example of the UK’s “excessive dependence” on workers abroad, and called on the government to “make more of an effort to invest in the local workforce”, including “increasingly paying nurses’ salaries”. fair. to promote recruitment and retention.”
She added that the government’s “determination” to recruit from Nepal despite being placed on the red list was “extremely concerning”. The recruitment process must be managed sustainably and steps taken for the benefit of both countries. The fact that we are taking nurses from countries with poor health infrastructure and chronic shortages is unforgivable.”
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