Angelite Nurses

By Haidee V. Eugenio
At least 22 Filipino nurses and auxiliary personnel in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have complained they have not been paid on time for as long as three months now.


Some nurses received partial payments for their salaries, but are still uncertain whether they would get paid in full or if they would get paid after all in the next pay period.

The 22 overseas health workers are employed by a private employment agency, Saipan Employment Agency and Services, for work in the CNMI, a U.S. territory some three hours away from Manila.

These Filipino nurses are assigned to the CNMI government-run Rota Health Center and Tinian Health Center, located in two other major islands of the CNMI.

In the CNMI’s capital island of Saipan, nurses in the government-run hospital are directly employed by the government and do not experience salary delays.

Most of the government nurses in Saipan and in the whole Northern Marianas are Filipinos.
“Nagi-stay pa rin kami dito dahil ayaw naman naming iwanan ang mga pasyente namin. Pero sana maayos na itong problema namin. Sana ma-hire na kami directly ng gobyerno. Hindi na namin makakayanan kapag ‘di pa kami makatanggap ng sweldo,” one of the Filipino nurses at the Rota Health Center told GMANews.TV.
(We’re staying here because we don’t want to abandon our patients. But we’re hoping that our problem would be addressed. We hope we’d be hired directly by the government. We can’t stand it any longer if we still don’t receive our wages.)

Filipino nurses in both Tinian and Rota do not want to be identified, fearing retaliation from either the employment agency or the CNMI government.

Since March 2010, nurses in Rota received payments covering only the hourly $4.55 minimum wage of their salaries, and not their complete hourly salary of $8.93 to $9.20 an hour.

These nurses’ employment agency, SEAS, has also been permanently barred and disqualified from hiring, renewing or employing foreign workers in the CNMI because of labor violations.

SEAS appealed the decision, but the CNMI Department of Labor upheld the debarment and disqualification. The agency can still appeal the latest decision.

The employment agency likewise said it has not been receiving payments from the CNMI government and, as a result, could not pay these Filipino nurses for the services they render at the government health centers.

CNMI lawmakers stepped in to identify funds to pay the nurses salary. However, the funding appropriated by lawmakers and approved by the governor could only cover partial payment of the salaries.

The Philippine Consulate General in Saipan could not be reached as of posting time.

Records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration show there are over 3,200 Filipino workers in the US territory as of 2009.

Four Filipino nurses filed a discrimination complaint before the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against a hospital that allegedly fired them for speaking their native language at work.
Nurses Corina Capunitan Yap, Anna Rowena Rosales, Hachelle Natano, and Jazziel Granada claimed the Bon Secours Health System terminated them without due process and dismissed them solely for speaking in their native tongue.

The hospital’s policy states that English is the principal language and must be the exclusive language spoken and written by all employees while on duty in the emergency department.

However, the nurses, who are being represented by the Migrant Heritage Commission, said that they do not recall speaking in Tagalog in front or while providing patient care in the Emergency Department. They admitted speaking in their native language only during breaks at the Nurses’ Station.

The nurses’ lawyer, Atty. Arnedo Valera had asked the EEOC to investigate the complaint and if the hospital’s English-only rule in the workplace violates the Civil Rights Act.

Valera cited prior findings of the EEOC which did not favor this rule, “There were previous findings of the EEOC that this is burdensome as a condition of employment because it creates a disparate treatment which leads to discriminatory practice”.

Valera added that based on the nurses’ claims, speaking Tagalog during break time does not impede their work.

He added that should the EEOC find probable cause in the nurses’ complaint, the commission will issue a right to sue, after which they will file a case against the hospital before the district court and seek punitive damages of up to $500,000 for all four nurses. - via Balitang America

The possible deployment of Filipino health workers to Norway will increase the country’s intellectual capital and wealth, the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) said on Saturday.


Labor Acting Secretary Romeo Lagman made the statement after disclosing that Filipino nurses and caregivers may likely be deployed to Norway as soon as labor and health officials of Norway and the Philippines finalized talks on the matter.

“There are still apprehensions on the part of Norway particularly on the issue of ‘brain drain’ and the language training,” Lagman said in an interview.

“But we have 60,000 nurses produced every year, and enrollment for such course is not going down. We have an oversupply of nurses and we do not see a draining in our medical pool by increasing our deployment overseas,’’ he said.

According to Lagman, most European countries are now looking at the impact of social migration and do not want to take advantage of countries that are experiencing the brain drain phenomenon.
Norway labor and health officials are expected to visit the Philippines within the year to continue talks on ways to create employment for Filipino health workers.

Norway is open for employment and has huge requirement for nurses, said Lagman.
Should the deployment of Filipino nurses to Norway pushes through, he said the Philippines will be gaining so much not only from the job opportunities but also from the skills learned by the workers while in that country.
Currently, he said the country offers good compensation for health workers ranging from $3,000 to $7,000 per month.

Earlier, Norway had opened its doors to Filipino engineers and offering salaries ranging from $5,000 to $7,000 per month.

Apart from Norway, Lagman said Denmark is also open for Filipino workers although details on possible employment are yet to be discussed. - via www.mb.com.ph