The nurses have said they are under emotional stress in the face of mounting debts, uncertainty over the future, and lack of support.
The nurses said they were promised well-paying jobs in the UK, but have not got them. (iStockPhoto/Representational image)
Despite the surging demand for nurses and other healthcare professionals worldwide in the post-pandemic situation, 380 qualified nurses from Kerala now find themselves stranded in the UK after being lured there by unscrupulous recruiters with the promise of well-paying jobs.
As the duped nurses share harrowing tales of their struggles in the foreign country without money, proper accommodation, or even resources to meet daily expenses on food with their families back in Kerala, the issue is turning out to be yet another recruitment scam involving agencies of questionable credentials in both the state and the UK.
The nurses said they landed in the UK with sponsorship certificates and work visas. Yet, the recruiters remained noncommittal when it came to providing them with the promised placements.
Each stranded professional paid at least ₹15 lakh — mainly by availing bank loans at huge interest rates — to the agents, and they are now knocking on all possible doors for justice.
Despite repeated representations by their families to the Union government and the Kerala Health Department, no government-level intervention has taken place.
The huge debt and the stress of continuing in a expensive foreign country have started affecting their mental health, they said.
According to Thomas Varghese (name changed) of Ezhikkara, which is on the outskirts of Kochi, his wife Gracy, opted for the UK job offer hoping it would help them gain financial stability.
She had a BSc Nursing degree from a private institution in Karnataka and worked with a Bengaluru hospital for five years.
Despite a pending education loan of ₹7 lakh, the family borrowed an additional ₹18 lakh to send her to the UK to join a job ostensibly offered by the Cambian Group, one of the leading behavioural health service providers for children in the country.
The couple and their two small children landed in the UK in April this year, and now find themselves lost, with the recruiters remaining noncommittal on addressing their grievances.
“We came here on the promise of Gracy being recruited as a care worker in a government-aided childcare home in southwest England. Though the job does not match her qualification, we pursued it because of the accumulating debts and the eagerness to have a decent life. As repayments have been derailed, loan recovery agencies are flooding my WhatsApp with threatening messages,” he told South First over the phone.
Despite Gracy reaching the UK with a work visa and job offer availed through Kochi-based recruitment agency Affiniks International, Cambian refused to absorb her and offer placement as promised, he alleged.
The families of the nurses are flocking to the Kochi office of the recruiter, pleading it to change the employer and facilitate an easy resolution to the grievances.
One alleged that the UK firm even forced the candidates to attend unnecessary training programmes to delay them from finding out about the appointments, or lack f them.
With the money they had taken from India fast depleting, the nurses said continuing in the foreign country without any income would be tough in the coming days. Many have been left stranded for nearly a year.
According to Anoop Sasidharan, affiliated with the UK Pravasi HelpDesk, which addresses grievances of Keralites in the UK, the helpline started receiving distress calls from the trapped nurses in August last year.
The helpline assisted the nurses in finding temporary accommodation, apart from deputing solicitor Krish Morgan and social activist Anish Abraham to provide legal support to the victims.
Among the nurses, the case of VK Sindhu (name changed) is quite different. Hailing from Alappuzha, she reached the UK in February but had to wait till April to get placement after exerting strong pressure.
Though she started to work in a childcare home in April, Cambian has not issued her an appointment letter or entered into any signed contract with her. The payments are also not as promised, she said.
PV Arathy (name changed) from Idukki said she was assigned the task of cleaning toilets despite having seven years of experience as a nurse in the UAE.
Baiju Thittala Varkey. (BaijuVarkeyThittala/Facebook)
Baiju Thittala Varkey, the deputy mayor of Cambridge and city councillor from East Chesterton in England, told South First that 380 such nursing professionals from Kerala are in a limbo in the UK because of the failure of the recruiters to keep their word.
While most are not getting appointed, a handful get delayed appointments at wages far less than what was promised.
Varkey is helping the stranded nurses in their fight for justice.
Meanwhile, when contacted through mail, Cambian maintained that it remains committed to nurses who landed in the UK and did its best to support them to get rewarding employment.
The company claimed it faced certain unexpected challenges, so the process has been delayed. Meanwhile, screenshots of the WhatsApp messages carrying harrowing experiences of the nurses in the UK are circulating widely in Kerala, leading to widespread outrage.
In one of such messages, a nurse who reached the UK in February said she depended on food banks run by charity organisations as she has run out of money to meet daily expenses, mainly food.
Others said they survive on bread and jam in small rooms with no fridge or oven. In the restaurants around, they say the cheapest lunch costs the equivalent of ₹1,500.
According to Varkey, the issue was brought to the attention of the Kerala government and the Union government multiple times, but no action has been initiated so far.
“The only mechanism that can be implemented to regulate such issues is to ask the local government to regulate these thieves exploiting the poor nurses. We can only take action against the employer who issued work permits. That process is ongoing,” Varkey told South First.
“These issues have been well brought to the attention of the Kerala government and the central authorities, and nobody seems to have bothered about it. Now they want to pass the buck on to the United Kingdom,” clarified Varkey.
“I am fighting the issue at the legal and political levels. I will be meeting two shadow ministers early next month. Although I cannot assure you, I understand that the Home Office has already started investigating the issue,” he told South First.
Meanwhile, Varkey told South First that Cambian and its parent company CareTech Group coordinate the UK’s largest network of social care institutions, and it has a legal obligation to provide employment and salary to all the nurses who reach the country believing it.
The group violated UK rules that protect jobseekers from unauthorised deductions and collection of money, he said.
A criminal defence solicitor himself, Varkey has taken up the cases of three such nurses with the Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service (ACAS).
This government-funded independent public body resolves workplace disputes between employers and employees. Three more nurses have approached him seeking similar help.
Along with CareTech and Cambian, Care2Nurse — an arm of Affiniks — is also facing the allegations.
Most nurses are now awaiting the decision of ACAS and plan to move the tribunal against Cambian and CareTech based on the decision.
Varkey told South First that he has already written to the UK’s Secretary of State for the Home Department Suella Braverman — daughter of an Indian-origin woman — seeking an investigation into the “organised criminal activity”.
“It is an organised criminal activity of exploiting poor nurses of a different country. On false promises, they took nurses to a different country to exploit. The victims need justice,” he said.
According to nurse Sibi Joseph (name changed), a newspaper advertisement released by the Kochi firm in October last year landed him in the current mess. It promised a lucrative salary for workers in childcare homes in the UK.
First, the applicant had to register with Affiniks International in Kochi by paying ₹11,800. Then, there were pre-screening interviews. To get the offer letter from Cambian, the chosen candidates were forced to pay ₹2 lakh each to Affiniks.
Each candidate had to pay around ₹9 lakh for work visas and other expenses. They were forced to pay around ₹6 lakh for the rest of the processing expenses.
In the UK, the candidates were not contacted by Cambian as promised, and many found their visas were fast expiring. When they contacted Cambian, they were given different excuses for the delay, they said.
“It’s almost like we got trafficked into the UK. We paid such huge amounts of money, and suddenly we have nowhere to go or anyone to turn to. All the people who are supposed to be accountable for this are not responding properly to our claims,” said Prathibha K (changed identity), a candidate.
“Cambian is not cooperating at all, even after being sent emails week after week. Their recruiting officer, Ross, initially didn’t even reply to emails until I marked the CEO of the whole organisation, Mike, in one mail. It has been almost four months in the UK, and we don’t even have anything to eat. People are going to the food bank here to scrape up something,” she added.
“Affinks got us here with visas and offer letters. It should ensure that we are not stranded like this. It claims to be a reputed company,” she said.
“I had requested Cambian to give me any job; I don’t care even if it’s childcare. But they keep sending vague replies and putting things off. And each time we suffer,” she added.
“Linto Joseph, our contact at Affiniks, said everything would be sorted, but time is running out for us. We cannot wait much longer,” said Reena Varghese (name changed) of Kottayam.
As Linto Thomas, the managing director of Affiniks International, did not attend repeated calls, South First visited the agency’s regional office in Kochi to enquire about the allegations levelled by the nurses.
However, Thomas was not present and one of Affiniks International’s staff called Thomas from her personal phone and allowed South First to speak to him.
Thomas rejected the allegations of betrayal and said the number of nurses stranded in the UK was inflated.
“According to our estimates, seven to 10 nurses had certain issues with their jobs, but we have received assurances from CareTech that the issue will be sorted within a month.”
“I was also a nurse before becoming a recruiter, and I have been recruiting people for the last 14 years. I believe in Karma and I am ready to face the issue legally,” he said.
Thomas also said the nurses mentioned in some local news reports were not recruited through his agency, and challenged the nurses to publicise their offer letters.
“We assure you that no one recruited through our agency will have to come back to India without a job,” he said.
Maya John, who is associated with the United Nurses of India (UNI), blamed successive Indian governments for creating a work atmosphere where skilled nurses are forced to migrate for better living standards.
“I think a larger tectonic change is needed; the country’s growing health needs require many nurses and doctors. The reality is that country is not producing as many nurses and doctors up to our requirement,” she told South First.
Given the number of nurses that are coming out of the Indian education system with some kind of training like a BSc in Nursing, which is a course of 3.5-4 years, the problem is that a large part of education is provided in the private sector because the successive governments have not done enough on education and healthcare, she said.
According to John, due to the shortage of government colleges in India, many students study in the private sector, and most of them take loans to pursue the course.
“This puts pressure on the nurses to immediately start working. However, despite the country’s heavy demand for nursing professionals, India doesn’t have enough government-funded hospitals to accommodate these nurses, and they end up working in private hospitals at meagre wages. This also forces the nurses to work extra duty hours to meet their financial obligations,” John told South First.
Thus, there are only two options the nurses are left with: Either crack government exams and try to get into a government job or, like these nurses now stranded in the UK, borrow money and migrate to a foreign nation.
“It is the criminal negligence of successive Indian governments that has kept the public healthcare going to the dogs. Secondly, where is any effort from the Indian government to bring any regulation on placement agencies?” asked John.
She said the Union government had created this crisis in the first place, and “we need regulations on our qualified nurses migrating to foreign nations”.
She continued: “There should be an intergovernmental agreement to ensure that the security of jobs, wages, and other benefits like accommodation and insurance are assured to the nurses migrating from India.”
John also said: “Some of our progressive trade union movements are very concerned about the crisis of government nurses, and we demand the government push for more recruitment in the government sector so that the country’s healthcare needs can be met.”
She noted: “In 2019, the WHO had already raised the red flag and passed a resolution that its member states were supposed to abide by, which was that a developing country could not draw nurses and doctors from areas in the world where there was a shortage of them. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, such regulations were relaxed. It is high time we go back.”
John also told South First that if UNI were to receive a petition from the stranded nurses in the UK, it would be taking up the issue with authorities from the Indian government.
Speaking to South First, Siju Thomas, the secretary of the Indian Professional Nurses Association (IPNA), said that his association would investigate the issue and, if required, present the issue to the Union Ministry of External Affairs.
“We haven’t received a formal complaint; however, since the issue involves several Indian nurses, we will study it in detail, and, if required, we will approach the foreign affairs department demanding the required help,” stated Thomas.
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