Recruiting and retaining nurses is fast becoming a point of concern for Indian hospitals. According to healthcare sector players, the attrition rate for nurses in the industry are the highest among all employee categories.They are between 28% and 35% as compared to the average 10.1% healthcare sector attrition rate for 2005. The average attrition rate for the Indian industry stood at 14% for 2005. Industry experts point out that this is due to two factors. First, with the Indian healthcare sector growing at a rate of over 30%, the sector is ripe for a talent war.
While most players like Apollo, Max, Wockhardt, Fortis, etc, are in the expansion mode, there is only a limited talent pool to recruit nurses from.
Says CEO (operations) of Fortis Healthcare Daljit Singh,
“Nurses are in high demand as they are critical to the healthcare process. As a result, they get the most job offers.”
There is rising demand for Indian nurses in countries like the US, the UK and the Middle East.
An Indian nurse can expect to earn anything between $40,000 and $60,000 for a staff job in these countries. A nursing supervisor can earn around $ 80,000. And with overtime, they can add another 20,000 to 30,000 dollars to their salary. Not surprisingly, nurses are flocking to foreign countries.
The American Nursing Association has calculated that there are 126,000 nursing jobs lying vacant in US hospitals now. This demand is expected to swell to 450,000 nurses by 2008 according to the US Department of Health and Human Service.
By Taneesha Kulshrestha, Financial Express