Nurses from the People's Republic of China will start to work on the wards of Irish hospitals this summer.
The first group of 10 nurses will commence work in St James's Hospital, Dublin in July. They will work as nurse attendants until they have completed a one-year course in English at Trinity College Dublin. They must then complete the normal induction and assessment period stipulated by An Bord Altranais before they can work as nurses.
They are, however, already highly trained, according to Eurocollege, a Tullamore-based training agency involved in arranging their transfer to Ireland.
All have completed a four-year part-time graduate diploma in Clinical Medicine in universities in China subsequent to completing their normal three-year nurse training programme, according to Miss Lin Lin Lee of Eurocollege.
"By Chinese standards, these nurses are very highly qualified." One nurse who has applied to come to Ireland in a future programme is a director of nursing (matron) in a Chinese hospital.
Chinese nurses have worked in the Middle East, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the USA and the UK.
Arabic tends to be the second language of Chinese nurses who want to work abroad. The country has 1.2 million registered nurses.
Last year, Eurocollege arranged for representatives of health boards and hospitals to visit China. The organisation says it got invaluable help from Mr Michael Garvey, who represents Enterprise Ireland in Beijing.
Miss Lee returns to China tomorrow with offers of employment from St James's Hospital for the 10 nurses who will arrive in July. Another hospital is to visit China in March to recruit between 10 and 20 nurses, who are expected to arrive here in August.
The course in English which they will undertake is developed by Eurocollege and Trinity's School of Nursing and Midwifery.
Eurocollege, which has a Chinese director based in Beijing, says it is in discussions with a number of nursing recruitment agencies in Ireland and the UK with a view to co-operating on the recruitment of nurses from China.
Eurocollege was set up by Mr Ray Gunning of Tullamore and Beijing-based Mr Li Fa, to bring students and qualified professionals from China to Ireland to study English and for professional training.