As the national health system in Portugal staggers under government-instigated cuts, there is good news for nurses facing the threat of unemployment.
Health bosses in the UK are actively seeking Portuguese professionals to fill vacancies in a number of city hospitals.
The Peterborough Telegraph reported last week that “health chiefs plan to travel to Portugal” as well as Italy “to find the staff to start work in May and June this year”.
Joanna Cousins, deputy director of human resources at the Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We will be recruiting nurses from Portugal and Italy and working closely with the Portuguese and Italian communities in the city to ensure they are made to feel welcome.”
Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson added with refreshing honesty: “I don’t care where in the world people come from, providing that proficiency in English is demonstrated and they are appropriately qualified, then of course I welcome these new staff members to our local hospital.
“The priority is compassion, patient care and good clinical outcomes for my constituents. That’s what my constituents want and deserve.”
It was only last month that the Sunday Times carried a very Portugal-friendly article entitled: “NHS’s foreign nurses ‘best at caring’”. In it, hospital directors praised their Portuguese nurses for the compassion and care that they showed patients, particularly the elderly.
