Estonian medical workers, nurses and obstetricians will pass special courses at Tallinn Medical School to go to work in Norwegian hospitals. Radmann, the organizer of the project, will have a 75,000 Norwegian kroon commission fee for every contractor from Estonia.
In accordance with an international partnership agreement signed by Tallinn Medical School and Radmann, Gruppen Ltd. began courses for volunteers with a medical education and two or three years practical experience at the beginning of January. Unemployed specialists are preferred, according to the school Web site.
The special training paid by Radmann and arranged at the school includes an intensive course in the Norwegian language and other disciplines. The volunteers, who will sign a three-year contract, will get 40,000 Estonian kroons ($2,400) a month for working in the same conditions as Norwegian nurses. The average net salary in Estonia was 5,500 kroons at the end of last year. The average wage for a nurse in Estonia is some 3,000 kroons.
Radmann has had previous business affairs in Estonia. In 1995 to 1998, he owned a wool factory in the west of Estonia that went bankrupt, and in 1997 his second company, an Estonian-Ukrainian enterprise dealing with steel ropes, was also closed due to the inadequacy of its capital.
According to data from the Commercial Register, Radmann still has a debt of about half a million kroons ($30,000) as a result of his earlier entrepreneurial projects in Estonia.
Radmann confirmed that his company has not yet signed any agreements with Norwegian hospitals, although he planned to send the first nurses to Norway at the end of this year.
Estonian media and officials, especially the Ministry of Social Affairs, have assessed Radmann's project negatively.
"The state carried the expenses for training the nurses, and that's why the ministry has a negative attitude towards their leaving," said Sigrid Tappo, a spokesperson for the ministry. However, Tappo added that according to the freedom of the movement of labor, European traditions and the neutral disposition of the Estonian state regarding the project, the ministry cannot prevent the nurses from going to work abroad.
The only way the ministry can regulate the project is through the control of the professional knowledge of medical workers.
Tappo said that the salaries of medical workers here are in accord with the capability of Estonian taxpayers.
"If Estonian residents continually experience economic growth, then the income of medical workers will also grow," she said.
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