The police are investigating allegations that a group of Pakistani nurses employed at Mater Dei Hospital to plug the shortages were being exploited by a company that is demanding a fee out of their salary.

A contract, seen by this newspaper, between the “agent”, who purported to act as a conduit between the nurses and the state hospital, stipulates that each nurse has to pay as much as €3,000 out of the salary in management fees while in employment here.

The nurses are reportedly meant to hand over €600 from their first pay and 12 instalments of €200 to complete the sum. Following that, the company still expects payment of €85 monthly for the duration of their contract.

The contract specifies that the company had assumed the role of representing the nurses and its duties were to “coordinate, collaborate, hold meetings, pay all fees and expenses, registering, filling in and evaluating forms and applications relating to the procurement of employment for the nurse”.

One of the 47 Pakistani nurses employed at Mater Dei, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity, said that about 18 months ago, a co-national had called from Malta to inform him the Maltese government was recruiting international health care staff and that he was the channel they had to go through.

This man allegedly told the nurses working at Liquat National Hospital to send all the documentation to him and which he eventually passed on to the Medical Council, which had to verify the qualifications with its Pakistani counterpart.

“Once we started working in Malta, he made us pay him €120 a month to live with another nine people in a two-bedroom apartment,” the nurse recounted. This was excluding another €12 for television, internet and telephone access. The nurse has a monthly basic pay of just above €1,000, of which he has to pay for rent (he has since moved out of the flat he shared with nine people) and money to the “agent”. The rest goes into living expenses and to support his family back in Pakistan.

It was only when the foreign nurses started speaking to their Maltese colleagues about their situation that they realised the scheme could potentially be illegal and they took it to the police.

The Pakistani middleman had warned the nurses not to speak to other Pakistani people in Malta and that they should turn to him for help.

The Health Ministry would not answer questions by The Times about the matter, citing the ongoing investigation. The police confirmed they were investigating the case.

The nurses are part of a drive by the government to recruit 300 nurses in view of staff shortage within the health care service. The recruitment of foreign nurses had been opposed by the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, which had said the language barrier and differing standards in training would adversely affect the level of health care offered in Malta.