Angelite Nurses

Filipino nurses are reportedly choosing other countries over the United States for employment. “The deepening recession in America has clearly diminished the desire of some Filipino nurses to seek employment there,” said former senator Ernesto Herrera, secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP).

Herrera said that a total of 8,272 Filipino nurses sought to practice their profession in the US by taking the National Council Licensure Examination or NCLEX for the first time from January to June. 

The figure, according to Herrera, was 1,565 fewer compared to the 9,837 who took the exam in the same six-month period in 2008.

Pinoy nurses are reportedly trying out other foreign labor markets particularly the United Kingdom and the Middle East.

“Actually, fewer nurses from India, Korea, Canada and Cuba are seeking US jobs as well,” Herrera said.

Nurses from India who took the NCLEX for the first time in the first semester were down 56 percent (to 750 from 1,715). Those from South Korea were down 35 percent (to 613 from 934); from Canada down 36 percent (to 314 from 494); and from Cuba down 38 percent (to 192 from 309).

The TUCP said that the four countries are the other top suppliers of foreign nurses to America.

In the whole of 2008, there were a total of 20,746 Filipino nurses who took the NCLEX for the first time or down 3.5 percent compared to the 21,299 Pinoy nurses that took the test for the first time in 2007.

Filipino accounted for 37 percent of the 22,500 foreign-educated nurses who took the NCLEX for the first time in the first semester, according to Herrera.

The Philippines now has some 600,000 nurses actively looking for jobs here and abroad, or forced to perform work outside their profession. They include the 99,837 who passed the local nursing licensure examinations from July 2008 to July 2009.

The government tapped 10,000 of the Filipino nurses and deployed them under the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service (NARS). It allows nurses to serve in the country’s depressed municipalities for six months in return for a monthly allowance of P8,000. - via www.abs-cbnnews.com

The U.S. nurse shortage is getting worse, but are more visas the answer—or would improved training capacity, working conditions, and pay do the trick?

For more than a decade, the U.S. has faced a shortage of nurses to staff hospitals and nursing homes. While the current recession has encouraged some who had left the profession to return, about 100,000 positions remain unfilled. Experts say that if more is not done to entice people to enter the field—and to expand the U.S.'s nurse-training capacity—that number could triple or quadruple by 2025. President Barack Obama's goal of expanding health coverage to millions of the uninsured could also face additional hurdles if the supply of nurses can't meet the demand. 

Some lawmakers are looking to the immigration pipeline as one means to raise staffing levels. In May, Representative Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) introduced a bill that would allow 20,000 additional nurses to enter the U.S. each year for the next three years as a temporary measure to fill the gap. If the bill doesn't pass on its own, lawmakers may include it in a comprehensive immigration reform package. Obama is slated to meet with congressional leaders on June 25 to discuss reforming U.S. immigration laws. 

Hospital administrators such as William R. Moore in El Centro, Calif., a sparsely populated town 100 miles east of San Diego, see the Wexler bill as a potential life raft. Moore is chief human resources director at El Centro Regional Medical Center, a 135-bed public hospital that typically has 30 open positions for registered nurses (RNs). While it's hard to lure nurses from nearby big cities (San Diego is 100 miles west), Moore says he could quickly recruit dozens of eager, qualified nurses from the Philippines if the government allocated more visas. "All we want is temporary relief," says Moore. "Let us get a group of experienced RN hires from the Philippines, and we won't ask for more."

By Candice Dominique Montenegro - GMANews.TV

Citing the continued exodus of Filipino doctors and nurses for jobs abroad, two lawmakers are proposing a program that would train barangay volunteers as health professionals.

House Bill 6536, authored by Akbayan party-list Representatives Risa Hontiveros and Walden Bello, seeks to establish the “Bibong BHW Education and Training Program” to train barangay health workers not just as midwives and physical therapists but also as doctors and nurses.

An explanatory note of the bill said tapping over 1.3 million front line workers across the nation would help address the crisis facing the Philippine health delivery system, as manifested in the closure of 200 hospitals during the past three years and partial closing of 800 more hospitals due to lack of doctors and nurses.

“That the Philippine health sector is experiencing a brain drain is no hidden fact,” said the bill, noting that between 1994 and 2003 alone around 85,000 Filipino nurses went abroad, while 3,000 doctors left the country as nurses from 2000 to 2005 and an additional 3,000 enrolled in nursing schools in 2006.

In a statement, Hontiveros also said that training local health volunteers is a better alternative to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III’s plan to import foreign health professionals to replace the 3,000 doctors who left in 2000-2005.

She added that the program is not only strategically in line with other health reform bills by the government but is also timely and urgent, especially with the pandemic outbreak of the A(H1N1) virus.

“Kapag nahaharap sa pandemic, mas-tumitindi ang sitwasyon dahil sa phenomenon ng labor migration ng health professionals [When faced with a pandemic, the situation becomes more grave because of the labor migration phenomenon of health professionals],” she said.

‘Step ladder’ training

As proposed, the Bibong BHW Program will follow the “step ladder” training program the University of the Philippines has initiated. 

The first step is a mandatory basic training on community health care delivery, while the second step is a more comprehensive training on community health care where they could specialize in midwifery, occupational therapy, pharmacology and so on.

The next two steps are more rigorous and specialized. The third step allows BHWs to take courses required in becoming a licensed nurse.

After finishing the 15-month program, volunteers will be eligible to take the Nursing Licensure Board Examination.

The fourth step allows BHWs to take another five-year program that includes courses on Medicine. Completion of this program will allow the volunteer to take the licensure exams for doctors.

The Bibong BHW Program bill also includes benefits for BHWs, such as full scholarships and socialized subsidies for the training, mandatory PhilHealth membership for all accredited BHWs, as well as an increase in their allowance from the current P500-P850 per month to a standard P4,500.

Teng Icoy, vice president for internal affairs of BHWs in the National Capital Region, said that the program could help volunteers like him become better at what they do. A community health worker who has been practicing reflexology for 13 years, Icoy says that the program will attract more people to become health volunteers.

“Walang age requirement para maging volunteer [there is no age requirement in becoming a volunteer],” he said. “As long as they undergo the basic course and their heart is in it, they can become barangay health workers.”