According to Nepal Health Professional Federation (NHPF), an umbrella organization of health institutions licensed to check up and issue certificates to medically-fit foreign job seekers, 538 Nepali workers have been sent home by various countries between 21 November of 2008 and October 26 of 2010.[break]
All of them, who were certified medically-fit in Nepal weeks before flying overseas, were sent home since they failed medical tests conducted by the health agencies of respective countries. Malaysia, where one third of Nepali migrant workers are employed, topped the list of such countries.
Multiple sufferings
Not only do the Nepali workers, who return after failing medical tests in foreign countries, lose their hard-earned money and valuable time but also undergo mental trauma. Normally, an overseas job seeker spends Rs 100,000 to land in a gulf country apart from other expenses required for traveling from his village to Kathmandu and staying in hotels in the lingering process of obtaining visas.
"About two dozen Nepali workers are being sent back home every month," Khadga Bahadur Shrestha, president of NHPF, said. "The number of returnees compared to those landing jobs there is not very high. But their sufferings are countless. Today, many returnees are on the verge of losing their ancestral properties for not being able to pay back loans."
NHPF has been providing compensation to those returnees who fail medical examinations abroad despite obtaining certificates from its member health institutions. However, the compensation is so meager that it hardly makes up for the loss.
Fit, unfit and fit again
Interestingly, a majority of Nepali employees, who returned home after failing medical tests overseas, passed a subsequent re-examination. According to NHPF, only 39 out of 538 employees were found medically-unfit in such tests held shortly after their arrivals.
"Malaysia returned 10 employees for testing positive for HIV-positive in the last two years," Shrestha said. "However, when we tested them again, they tested negative. This has really puzzled us."
It is believed Nepali employees are being sent back home after failing medical examinations there due to Nepal´s unregulated and sub-standard health check-up system.
According to Raghu Nath Giri, secretary at NHPF, most of the health institutions qualified by the government for issuing health certificates lack avant-garde X-rays.
"We use mostly manual X-rays. At times, we fail to trace some diseases through such X-rays," Giri said, adding, "But in foreign countries, health institutions mostly use digital X-rays that easily detect diseases." This is, according to Giri, one of the many reasons why an employee medically-fit in Nepal gets turned down abroad.
NHPF president Shrestha admitted to weaknesses on their part. However, he blames unscrupulous manpower agencies for this. "In spite of several measures put in place, agents of manpower agencies easily forge certificates that we only provide to medically-fit job seekers. Many job seekers, unaware of the possibility of being caught overseas, rely on manpower agencies only to be sent back home."
A Nepali delegation is all set to go to Malaysia to take up this issue. "The team will talk to Malaysian authorities to sort out this exasperating problem," he said.
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