Skilling of care workers on cards; govt to train healthcare staff under Heal by India initiative

Eyeing a massive demand for care workers globally, the government is working on modalities to train and deploy nurses and allied healthcare professionals across the world under its Heal by India initiative.

The plan is to create a pool of nurses and care workers and help India to become the Care Capital of the world, a senior government official told ET.

"While the master project is 'Heal in India', 'Heal by India' is the initiative of the ministry of health and family welfare, the ministry of skills development will provide skills training and other necessary requirements for movement of Indian healthcare workers to different parts of the world," the official said.

The National Skills Development Council of India has entered into an agreement with the Indian Nursing Council as well as the health sector skills councils for deploying skilled healthcare professionals and care workers outside India.

Besides, the ministry is in talks with its counterparts in Israel, Portugal, Finland and Germany to assess demand for caregivers and will soon come up with customised training modules to meet country-specific requirements.

The plan is to tap into the human resource pool of Indian Nursing Council, state governments and private healthcare institutions and provide them with training of international standards to facilitate overseas placement.

The ministry is in the process of aggregating demand from destination countries after which it will provide domain related skills training, foreign language proficiency training and other capacity building activities to make them employable overseas.