Rabat – The Quebec government has announced its plan to spend $65 million over the next two years to recruit 1,000 nurses from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Mauritius amid-nursing shortages in the Canadian province.
Quebec Labor Minister Jean Boulet made the announcement on February 16, noting that new recruits are needed in several regions across Quebec, including Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Cote-Nord, and Bas-St-Laurent. Yet the nurses can choose to work in other regions.
The candidates will receive nine to twelve months of training to receive recognition from the province’s Ordre des infirmières (Nursing Order). As trainees, the nurses will work 20 hours per week as personal support workers and benefit from a $500 weekly allowance. Quebec’s Immigration Ministry will cover their academic and processing fees.
The Quebec government further launched a new program that enables recruited nurses, set to arrive in autumn, to settle in Quebec with their immediate family. Spouses will also receive work permits.
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Quebec’s recruitment program comes as Morocco is struggling to address an “acute shortage” of healthcare professionals. In January, Morocco’s Minister of Health Khalid Ait Taleb stated that only 32,000 doctors and 65,000 nurses serve more than 36 million Moroccans.
To address the issue, Ait Taleb suggested the recruitment of Moroccan doctors in the diaspora and the increase of incentives for doctors operating across the country.
Annually, 1,200 doctors graduate from Moroccan medical schools. As the number of medical graduates is not enough to meet Morocco’s needs, the Ministry of Higher Education has decided to reduce the duration of medical training in the country from seven to six years and to admit more medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry students.
With Morocco struggling to keep new medical graduates in the country, recruitment programs, such as the Canadian one, counter the Moroccan government’s ongoing efforts to address the persistent issue of personnel shortage at Moroccan hospitals.
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