Helen Dangel from Patharkandi gets into the UK's NHS nursing training programme; only one from the Northeast region

In the Karimganj district’s Patharkandi area, a woman who happens to be a nurse by profession has made it to the prestigious National Health Service’s (NHS) nursing program in the United Kingdom. The woman, Helen Dangel, is the wife of Surajit Chetri of the Dohalia-Faridkona GP area in Patharkandi. Helen is a GNM nurse of the Patharkandi Model hospital and happens to be the only woman from the entire Northeast region to have cracked the examination and made it to the medical college under the NHM, UK.

Helen (Chetri) Dangel was born in the Tumjang village under the Dima Hasao district and lives with her husband in the Dohalia area in Patharkandi. She had appeared for the Occupational English Test (OET) back in 2019 October whose result was declared in November of that year. After discovering that she has made through the selection test, she and her husband started preparing for her safe passage to the UK to get training under the NHS scheme. For the entrance test, Helen took coaching in Kerala’s Kottayam following which she appeared for the OET in Bangalore.

While talking to the Barak Bulletin, Surajit Chetri, Helen’s husband said that they had already prepared everything starting from the Visa procedures to all the due qualifications that are required to make the shift, but only the pandemic in 2020 had delayed that entire process. “The formalities were almost complete by the beginning of 2020, but due to the pandemic that ensued later, everything came to a standstill. Then after unlock happened, we again started preparing for the necessities to attain a tier II Visa in the UK. On July 2, she left for the UK and now her training has already begun in the Medway Maritime Hospital in England, UK”, said Surajit.

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded national healthcare system of the UK. They take in students from different streams from international countries providing job opportunities under their healthcare system. Naturally, this achievement of hers means a lot to her family members and friends, as well as for the entire Barak Valley. Helen Dangel has already left and started her training in England and her husband too reckons that he’d be leaving sometime around this year as well with their daughter to join her in the UK.

Helen did her schooling at the St. Edmund’s Convent School in Haflong following which she did her nursing training in the Borgang Catholic Hospital in Biswanath Chariali. She got married to Surajit Chetri in 2014 and they have a 6-year daughter as well.

Surajit further adds, “The system in the UK is quite fascinating. After working there for 5 years, anybody could be eligible for UK citizenship there. The education is free of cost there, and pension is also available after retirement, even for the ones who migrate from other countries to work there. We are planning to slowly move out of here and settle in the UK if everything goes fine with her first few months of going there. Her nursing training will go on under the NHS scheme, and if everything goes well, one day she might start working there as well under the UK government.”