As scores of consulting firms recruit hundreds of nurses for lucrative jobs in the United States, a new visa hurdle has cropped up.

The Bureau Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS) issued orders recently to implement the VisaScreen system on immigrating healthcare workers. VisaScreen is a mandatory certificate that tests whether an applicant's education, experience, training and English language ability are equivalent to that of a U.S. healthcare worker.

The regulation, which came into effect September 23, is applicable to nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and healthcare professionals, but not physicians.

Travel agents and visa consultants said the American dream of hundreds of thousands of Indian nurses has turned sour with the new system.

"The rule will considerably delay migration of hundreds of nurses and healthcare professionals from India to the United States. It spoils the chances of nurses who want to work in the United States on a temporary basis, for three years or for a maximum of six years," said Mathew Philip, Managing Director of ABC Consultants, a nursing recruiting firm in Kochi, India.

According to the American Nursing Association, 126,000 nursing jobs are vacant in hospitals across the country. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services pointed out that the shortage will turn worse as the country will need 450,000 nurses by 2008.