Dutch Gov't Advised To Offer More Health Care Jobs To Refugees - Reports

A government advisory committee on immigration in the Netherlands urged the authorities to involve more qualified refugees in health care employment to overcome the shortage of domestic workforce, the Dutch News outlet said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2021) A government advisory committee on immigration in the Netherlands urged the authorities to involve more qualified refugees in health care employment to overcome the shortage of domestic workforce, the Dutch news outlet said on Tuesday.

Citing a report of the Dutch Advisory Committee on Migration Affairs (ACVZ), the outlet said that the country is currently short of some 56,000 health care employees, while by 2030, the figure may reach 130,000.

Refugees and asylum seekers with sufficient language and training skills should be granted easier access to jobs in health care, ACVZ told the government. The current procedure of job hunting in Dutch health care is long and costly, according to the report.

Refugee candidates have to wait for years for their asylum applications to be processed, as well as go through a four-year retraining process, which is a requirement introduced by the European Union for health specialists from third countries.

Furthermore, the Dutch government should address the prejudice and discrimination that refugee doctors face from patients and colleagues, the committee was cited as saying.

The advisory report proposes to assess foreign qualifications more quickly and create a safe working environment for refugees by hiring interpreters and culture mediators, among other things.