[LINK] "Nurses Seeking Greener Pastures in Italy"

[rfmcdonald]

Natalia Ruiz Díaz' Inter Press Service article "Nurses Seeking Greener Pastures in Italy" examines how some professionals from Paraguay, one of the poorest countries in South America, are starting to emigrate in large numbers to the developed world.

Graciela Samaniego has her bags packed. Along with a number of fellow nurses, she is ready to leave her job at a public hospital in the Paraguayan capital and fly to a city in northern Italy, where she will work in a nursing home.

"I’m going because I want to build a house. With what I earn here, despite all the years I’ve been working, it’s simply impossible," she tells IPS.

The group of nurses recruited to work in Italy mention different reasons for going, from the dream of having a home of their own to ensuring financial stability for their children.

The preparations for their departure have been kept under close wraps since an attractive job offer began to make its way through the ranks of nurses in this landlocked South American country in 2005.

Representatives of Italian companies, like Obiettivo Lavoro, the European country’s largest human resources management group, came to Paraguay seeking to hire health workers.

The first contingent of nurses consisted of more than 100 people, nearly all of them women.

Around 95 percent of the health workers who have left since 2006 were nurses with a certain level of seniority in their workplaces, and with degrees from respected local universities like the National University of Asunción, where education is tuition-free.

"This is an eminently female profession in our country, which faces gender discrimination on a daily basis," María Concepción Chávez, president of the Paraguayan Nursing Association, told IPS.

Now new groups of workers are getting ready to head halfway across the world in search of better working conditions. But this time around, the hires include recent graduates from nursing school.

"One of the reasons for emigrating is the lack of recognition of our profession in this country, where wages and benefits are far below the level of the work required of us," said Chávez.

Paraguay has a long history of being a country of emigration--the second half of the 20th century was marked by massive emigration to Argentina, most notably.