It will take months before Asian healthcare workers can be deployed to overcome the staff shortage in healthcare.
“We expect to welcome the first Filipino people at the end of the second quarter and then we hope to deploy them in the third quarter,” said Frank van Gool, director of OTTO Work Force.
Positively surprised
The Venray company wants to bring Filipino IC nurses to the Netherlands. According to Van Gool, the Philippines in particular is known for the high quality of healthcare workers, but the company also recruits in Vietnam and Indonesia. The director has just returned from the Philippines. “We are positively surprised that the level in the Philippines is high,” he says. “We need a few more months. We are in the Philippines with language and culture training.”
Furthermore, according to Van Gool, it is a huge eye opener that the Philippine hospitals want to cooperate. “They want to keep their people, but they also like that they can gain experiences elsewhere.”
Also read: Philippine migrant workers as a solution to the healthcare crisis
Concerns FNV
FNV expressed its concerns in a letter last week. The union calls the deployment of migrant workers ‘neither a sustainable nor a temporary solution’. They fear that the migrant workers do not have the right qualifications and that they do not master the language and manners. “I understand the concerns, but that is partly due to ignorance,” says Van Gool. “We will discuss this with the union shortly.”