Access to the Right Person

Even though there are few hundreds of recruiting firms in India, most of them are in recruitment of construction crew for overseas assignments. The seventies saw the construction boom in the Middle East and it was required to recruit a very large number of workers from India. During this period a number of travel agents and traders jumped on the recruitment bandwagon. Their total lack of knowledge in human resources management was not an obstacle at all. The reason being the Middle East employers required only semi-skilled category of people like Masons, Carpenters, Steel Fixers etc. The highly skilled and engineers were sourced from Europe and USA.

To recruit such category of workers, no professional approach was required. All it took was contacts in the Middle East and the willingness to offer hospitality for interviewing delegates on their visit to India.

Since there was no specialized medical recruitment agency in India, even healthcare providers in the Middle East also utilized the service of above so called recruiting agents (traders & travel agents) to source the medical professional. There were few hospitals and clinics in private sector in the Middle East. The employers had to compromise with the quality of healthcare professionals supplied by so called recruiting agents. But the nineties saw a boom in hospitals and clinics in private sector in the Middle East. The competition among healthcare providers started.

To meet with competition, healthcare providers turned high tech, using state-of-the-art technology. The advances in technology have ensured quick and efficient delivery of quality medical care. Even the most sophisticated procedures can be carried out in half the time, unlike before. Being technology savy has resulted in rich dividends for the hospitals. It is technology that has made by pass heart surgery possible. Besides, the rehabilitation period has also been brought down. For   instance, after the conventional cataract operation, a patient would need recuperate at least for forty-five days. But with the latest technique like phakonit, the patient is up and about within thirty  minutes and can get back to his routine.

Installation of sophisticated instruments alone would not be beneficial in any way, top class surgeons and technicians needs to be behind the instrument as well. Only if the best brains were coupled with the best instruments would the combination be unbeatable. Highly qualified doctors, nurses and technicians were the need of the hour. The so called recruiting agents (travel agents and traders ) failed to source the right candidates.

The birth of IHRI was great relief for the healthcare providers in the Middle East. The new millennium saw an acute shortage of Nurses and Physicians in Europe and USA. 

Naturally they turned to India.