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Minister Gregor Jaburek from the Bavarian Ministry of Health made clear the state government’s intention to simplify, standardize and speed up state procedures for the recognition of foreign professional qualifications in nursing: “We will significantly reduce the average processing time of applications,” he said. Jaburek. In 2022, there were about 3,600 applications for recognition as nurses, mostly from the Philippines, Bosnia/Herzegovina and Tunisia. The trend is clearly increasing. About 20 percent of the approximately 260,000 nurses in Bavaria are currently from abroad. “The permanent retention of foreign nursing professionals in Germany is also a big challenge,” the minister emphasized. This is why the approach of the Hof University of Applied Sciences, which attaches great importance to integration into society and the labor market at the same time as studying, is correct.
Not everyone is mobile
Michael Wittmann, Managing Director of the Bavarian Nurses Association (VdPB), agreed: “One challenge is that many nursing staff who have moved to Germany will not be satisfied with us as long as there is no private support. take care of that too.”
His colleague Bernhard Krautz presented the findings of the current “Monitoring of Nursing Personnel Requirements of the VdPB”. His conclusion: Vacancies often remain empty for months. There can no longer be any question of a balance between supply and demand, and employers are experiencing great competition in their efforts to hire nursing staff. In addition, the caregivers’ range of mobility is small at 20 to 25 kilometers: “But it is also understandable that after hours of hard physical work, no one wants to travel a long distance anymore.”