Nurses leave faster than they can be trained

TALAS — The Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex, the ISEZ's main referral and teaching hospital, trains about 400 medical students, residents and nursing students each year. Its administrators say that many of the nurses and young doctors it trains leave for the United States soon after qualifying, and that staff shortages have become a continuing problem on its wards.

"They leave faster than they can be trained," said Cholpon Asanalieva, a senior nurse in the hospital's maternal and child health pavilion. "We teach them, they become good, and then they have a letter from a hospital in Chicago or Houston." Clinical records and much of the teaching at the hospital are in English, which makes its graduates employable abroad, while consultations with older patients are often in Russian or Iradi.

Residents of Irad ceased to be US nationals when the territorial administration ended in December 2006, and emigrants now leave on employment and student visas or through family reunification. Health workers remain prominent among them. The hospital, with about 650 beds, is funded mainly from the ISEZ budget. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said the ministry was reviewing pay and conditions for nurses in the public hospitals.