Educational institution Summa Zorg in Eindhoven will be training several dozen Filipino nurses in the near future. They should then start working in Dutch hospitals later this year, in order to alleviate the staff shortage there.
“We are about 49,000 people short in care,” says Summa director Katinka van Garderen. “A huge number. And it is expected that it will only increase to about 135,000 by 2030.”
And so the educational institution, the largest in the south of the Netherlands with 26 schools and 18,000 students, is now entering into a partnership with OTTO Health Care. This organization helps with the international exchange of healthcare personnel, explains director Frank van Gool.
Five years
“We want to help by having foreign nurses work in the Netherlands for five years. In countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, this has been done satisfactorily for some time.”
Now we are also getting such a construction in the Netherlands. OTTO Health Care recently entered into a partnership with a hospital in the Philippine capital Manila. The intention is that a few dozen nurses will eventually be allowed and able to work here for about five years.
Dutch language
But before that happens, they still need to be retrained. For example in the use of the Dutch language, which they will need during work. Summa Zorg will play an important role in that process.
The first Filipino nurses should start working in the third quarter of this year. This will initially be in South Holland, but the intention is for the collaboration to spread quickly across the country.