BAJAN AND GRENADIAN NURSES could soon be heading to the United States to help ease a major labour shortage in health care institutions.

Successful recruits are likely to be in line for salaries ranging from US$56 000 to US$58 000 per year on a two-year contract.

They could also end up with the status of permanent residents of the United States.

News of this came from officials of the Massachusetts-based Kennedy Healthcare Recruiting Inc., on their first business trip to Barbados yesterday.

The team comprised director and chief executive officer Patrick Curran, and the director of Overseas Recruiting, Mary Helen Kennerly. They traveled with their lawyer, Joseph Curran.

The trio had preliminary talks with about 20 nurses at the Silver Sands Resort, on recruitment procedures, immigration requirements, United States working conditions and the benefits nurses would reap.

It was likely to take between three and eight months for successful applicants to begin work in the United States, the recruiters said.

The nurses would be on a 40-hour work-week, with the chance of “part-time work in emergencies, where they will pay you US$35 to US$40 an hour”, Patrick Curran said.

NURSE RECRUITERS with an eye on Barbados: from left, lawyer Joseph Curran, Kennedy Healthcare Recruiting Inc director of Overseas Recruiting, Mary Helen Kennerly, and Patrick Curran, the company’s director  and CEO.

They would be on a health care plan where about 80 per cent of the costs would be borne by the employers, as well as a retirement plan.

Reimbursement of expenses on tuition and “periodic (pay) raises” were also part of the package, Curran said.

“We pay for the entire processing,” he said. “In return they sign

sign a 24-month contract to work full-time as a nurse. At the end of that contract they are free to do whatever the want—to have permanent residence a Green Card. They’ll have no commitment to anybody.
“They can come back here (to Barbados), they can go work any place in the United States. They’ll be licensed.”
The Currans and Kennerly have just been on a recruitment drive in Granada where they said they had started processing over 40 nurses for employment in the United States.
After yesterday’s whirlwind trip to Barbados, the team is expecting to return here in another eight weeks on a longer recruitment drive.
In related news, the National Union of Public Workers yesterday called on Government to ensure that all people who came to work in Barbados and all Barbadians who left the island to work “are recruited in an ethical manner.”
The appeal was part of a campaign by public sector unions worldwide surrounding the issue of ethical recruitment guidelines for health care workers.

(TY)