Spain To Hire Almost 200 Legally Resident Foreign Healthcare Professionals To Help Combat COVID-19 Crisis
Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the Ministry of Universities, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function have implemented an urgent and coordinated action to increase the number of foreign healthcare professionals willing to work in Spain immediately.
By taking this decision, it is expected that some 200 doctors and nurses from other countries that are resident in Spain will sign up in the coming days to the National Health System at a decisive time in tackling the health crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19 in our country.
The State Secretariat for Migration, attached to the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, has arranged the mechanisms for administrative flexibility provided for in Article 71.2 of the Common Administrative Procedure Act 39/2015, which allows the administrative files for residency and work authorisations to be prioritised, on reasoned grounds, which affect workers in an essential sector given a health emergency and in line with the criteria set in Decree 463/2020, of 14 March, declaring the state of emergency in Spain.
Through this initiative, implemented by both the Large Companies Unit and the State Secretariat for Migration, and through Immigration Offices, it is expected that in the next few days close to 200 foreign healthcare workers will receive the corresponding authorisation to work in Spain.
To meet this goal, the aforesaid ministerial departments have coordinated their actions in crucial areas, such as prioritising residency and work permits, the standardisation of qualifications and recognition of professional skills to provide an immediate response at a time of utmost demand and need for these profiles of professionals in our job market. To this end, a new coordination protocol has been prepared between the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the Ministry of Universities and the Ministry of Health to facilitate the exchange of information, consultations and effective rulings in order to implement these measures.
For its part, the Ministry of Universities has made speeding up standardisation processes a pillar of its priority action. A total of 100 case files have been resolved since last Friday to standardise medicine qualifications. In total, since the start of the year, a total of 762 health professionals have been authorised to practice.