The lure of big money and affluent life promised by USA. may remain merely a dream for many US aspirant paramedics in India, as the country's immigration authorities are currently enforcing a new set of stringent norms for immigration.

With a view to tighten the criteria for processing of visa applications in the post-September 11 scenario and as part of the decision to cut down H1B professional work permits to one-third, the US government is in the process of enforcing certain changes in emigration rules related to nurses.

The US laws now mandate nurses to have education, experience and English knowledge equivalent to that of the nurses in US. Further, the Green Card aspirants will have to pass the CGFNS and IELTS certification examination, a benchmark to qualify for working in that country. Even if the Indian nurses pass these examinations, they will have to come out successfully in the RN examination conducted in the US to obtain a work permit in that country.

By this, many of the nurses in India, mainly those trained in average training centres in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, were finding difficult to get entry to the US sources with leading recruiting agencies in Chennai and Kochi told Pharmabiz.

Sources note it may not be easy for Indian nurses to qualify these tests, especially English proficiency analysis tests at various levels, despite training at coaching centres for a few months.

Sources said there were exclusive coaching centres in Chennai, Kochi and Bangalore, where thousands of nurses enroll for coaching classes to write qualification examinations like TOEFL, CGFNS, TWETS etc. In the South, these exams are held thrice in a year at Bangalore and Kochi. Many of these centres, also acting as recruiting agencies, have tie-ups with U.S. hospitals to supply labor, said sources.

While visa screening was not mandatory for nurses earlier, now authorities stick to compulsory interviews, often lasting hours. Michael Thomas, Chief Counsel of U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, says about 75 percent of applicants to the US were subject to personal interviews, in a highly active visa issuing centre like Chennai, where about 650 people are interviewed every day. According to him, all the U.S. visa applicants will have to give their fingerprints from October 26, 2004, forcing cent percent of the applicants to face a personal interview.

Sources said another setback for the nurses was the decision of the US government not to allow temporary work permits in that country.

Sources note this situation was despite the chances for nurses in U.S.A., as the US Nursing Association estimates requirement of about 1, 26,000 nurses in that country and by 2008, U.S.A. would require about 4, 50, 000 nurses, according to the US health department officials.