The government has opened registrations for all health facilities that wish to conduct medical check-ups and issue fitness reports to Nepali migrant workers aspiring to work in foreign countries.

The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security on Wednesday issued a notice announcing that all the health institutions—both private or government—can conduct medical tests of workers and provide certificates, which are mandatory for Nepali workers before reaching the respective destination countries.

Narayan Regmi, spokesperson for the Labour Ministry, told the Post that the government decided to open applications for all the health institutions nationwide.

“The ministry has asked all the interested health facilities to get registered with the plan so that a maximum number of them can come along,” Regmi told the Post.

According to the Department of Foreign Employment figures, there are currently 234 registered facilities for checking health fitness of workers and issuing the fitness certificate.

The ministry hopes the number of such medical centres may go up with the decision to allow health facilities, which meet the criteria, to conduct health examinations of migrant workers.

Opening up registrations for all these health centres would also mean breaking the monopoly of the already registered hospitals and clinics, according to spokesperson Regmi.

“The number of hospitals and other facilities have gone up since the last time registration was open. The standards of many such hospitals and clinics must have improved that they can also issue the health certificate,” added Regmi.

Recently, the government also tried to demolish the syndicate that had long existed in health institutions, conducting medical examination for Malaysia-bound workers.

After declaring that all the agencies involved in providing visa processing and their services, including medical test, illegal in May last year, the government announced that the registration for health institution issuing medical reports for Malaysia-bound workers would be opened for all the health facilities.

Having received the migrant workers’ medical examination standard from Malaysia last week, the government officials told the Post that now all health facilities, meeting the criteria, would be allowed to take part in issuing fitness report to Malaysia-bound workers. Earlier, only 39 medical centres would conduct health check-ups for job seekers in Malaysia.