French nurses gravitate to English hospitals: recruiters

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Health/French+nurses+gravitate+English+hospitals+recruiters/1414324/story.html

Chemtob said young unilingual francophone nurses who choose to work at the Jewish because of the opportunity for day work tend to pick up English quite quickly.

“We help them out a lot,” she said.

But the help doesn’t happen in reverse, she said. Anglophone nurses who come to Montreal from outside Quebec lose their right to practise at all if they don’t pass French tests within a certain period of time, she said. The tests are administered by the Office québécois de la langue francaise, with input from the professional order of nurses.

Chemtob said the tests ask too much of anglophones in terms of their ability to write French.

“Most nurses at the Jewish don’t need to write French that well,” Chemtob said.