U.S. now recruiting nurses from Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Grappling with a shortage of nurses, hospitals in the United States are sending recruiters to Mexico and other poor nations, raising concerns of a possible drain on already strained health care in the developing world.

U.S. authorities have warned that the country could fall 275,000 nurses short of the numbers it will need by 2010, in part because of increasing health care demands from a growing elderly population.

Recruiters have long found help in the Philippines, which established schools to train nurses to work in the United States. The health care forces in India, South Korea and Nigeria have also been tapped.

But the latest focus is on Mexico, whose nurses could help serve the United States' rapidly expanding Hispanic population.

"The Mexican nurse understands, speaks and lives the culture of Latin America," said Guillermo Sanchez, president of MDS Global Medical Staffing, a Mexican company recruiting nurses to work at U.S. hospitals. "This is an advantage that has no price for the patient and the family of the patient."

Mexican nurses with advanced degrees can multiply their pay up to tenfold.

"My motivation, more than anything, is economic," said Sanjuana Sanchez, 40, who earns $350 a month on the night shift at a public hospital in Saltillo, a city in northern Mexico.

The mortgage takes half Sanchez's pay, and the rest helps raise two children. So she's begun studying English by day.

"My goal is to get to the United States for the salaries. My children are young, and you always want something better for your children," she said.

Recruiting of Mexican nurses is still in the early stages. Just 58 took the U.S. nurse licensing exam in 2002, according to the most recent statistics available from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

Only 16 of them — or 28 percent — passed, well below the 47 percent average for foreign test takers. Nurses from English-language countries generally fare better on the certification test, which is given in English.

But more Mexican nurses may be leaving soon.

MDS Global, a newcomer to nurse recruiting, is paying for Mexican nurses' extended English classes, visa applications and tests for certification in the United States.

It plans to send its first group of about 30 nurses north to work in July.