Final year, recently graduated nursing students get fake job offers from fraudsters out to make quick money

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when healthcare workers are struggling to cope with the ever-mutating virus, reports have come in of job scamsters approaching final year nursing students across the country with fake job offers claiming they are from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Several final year nursing students and recently graduated students have got repeated calls of ‘employment opportunities’ floated by the Central government or in foreign countries. The students were told that their college had submitted their names and in the view of the pandemic, they had been selected. The caller then asked them to pay a processing fee of Rs 2,150 as ‘legal charges’ for verifying their documents. They had gotten a call from the number +91 9851294483.

The students were informed that their names were processed on the basis of their college performance. They were given a choice of the countries they could opt for or work for Central government-run hospitals.

One of the students at Isabel Nursing College in Chennai who got such a call checked with the college principal about the issue. “Several students in the college got such a call. We have not checked if anyone has paid money. One of the students checked with us if we had submitted her details for jobs outside the state. She came to us because her parents did not want her to leave Tamil Nadu for employment during the pandemic. Soon, we informed all our students that the college had not submitted anyone’s names. Then we checked with Trained Nurses Association of India (TNAI) if they had. It then became evident that it was a scam,” said Dr Annie Raja, principal of Chennai-based Isabel College of Nursing.

As soon as TNAI was informed about the job scam, they put out an alert asking students to not fall for it. “Since several governments have announced interim and contract government jobs, students are falling for this scam. If they look at it carefully, they will realise that it is fake. At the end of the poster sent to them, the spelling of the ‘health department’ is wrong. There is also no mention of what approval is required to process the application for which the fee is required,” pointed out Professor Roy K George, TNAI president.

He added that they have not yet complained to the police, but plan to do so once they have more details such as the phone numbers from which the calls were made. However, TNAI has written to union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan informing them about the scam promising jobs by the ministry.

This is not the first time that nurses have faced fraudsters during the ongoing pandemic. Last month, there were reports that several Kerala nurses were stranded in UAE after they fell prey to a fake job scam advertised by recruitment agencies in the state. Several of these nurses had paid up to Rs 3.5 lakh to get these non-existent jobs. Once they reached UAE, they were made to stay in cramped rooms and given temporary jobs in COVID-19 sample collection labs.

This is despite the Indian Consulate in Dubai offering a job-offer verification service through the Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra (PBSK). Job aspirants can contact PBSK Dubai to verify the authenticity of an offer from UAE via email or through the app.