Angelite Nurses

Philippine-born NFL star to set up hospital

Tim Tebow, one of America's hottest new sports heroes, will help pay for a children's hospital in the poverty-stricken Philippines where he was born, his charity partners said Friday.
The $3 million, 30-bed facility will open in the southern city of Davao in mid-2013, the US-based charity CURE said in a statement on its website where a video message from the Denver Broncos quarterback was also posted.
"I've always had a a special place in my heart for the country in which I was born and I'm very excited about this project," Tebow said in the message as he appealed for the public to join him in donating to the hospital's fund.
"This hospital will change the lives of thousands of children in the Philippines."
The Tebow CURE Hospital will specialise in bone disease and injuries for children, with about of a third of the young patients expected to be charity cases.
The hospital will house a "Timmyâ€™s Playroom" to be used by children who undergo surgery.
The Tim Tebow Foundation, established in 2010, plans to build playrooms in children's hospitals around the world, and the Davao one will be the first.
CURE spokesman Matt Shandera told AFP on Friday that preparatory work was under way to build the hospital this year.
"We have people working on this project there," he said in a telephone interview from the United States.
Tebow, a devout Christian dubbed by some in the press as "God's quarterback", is known for late-game heroics leading to seemingly miraculous, come-from-behind victories for the Broncos in the National Football League.
Tebow was born in 1987 in Manila, the Philippine capital, where his Baptist parents were then serving as missionaries.
CURE, based in Philadelphia, is a faith-based charity that runs hospitals in health programmes in 20 countries for patients who are unable to afford medical care.

Filipino nurses sought in Bahrain

MANILA, Philippines – Bahrain is hopeful to fill up its urgent need for nurses with Filipino medical professionals —this is the good news that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced recently.

Meanwhile, Bahraini Social Development Minister and Acting Health Minister Dr. Fatima Al Balooshi will communicate with the Embassy the Kingdom's health manpower requirements as soon as possible.

The Bahraini government expressed that Filipino medical professionals are highly regarded in Bahrain because of their professional competence.

In a recent meeting with Philippine Ambassador to Bahrain Ma. Corazon Yap-Bahjin, Dr. Balooshi , in addition, promised to look into the possibility of facilitating the recognition of the Filipino doctors' credentials as medical specialists .

The Philippine government is optimistic that Filipino doctors will also be able to practice their profession as such and receive remuneration corresponding to their professional and educational qualifications.

6 Filipinos back from Libya

MANILA, Philippines—Six more Filipinos trapped in the violence-racked Libyan city of Misurata arrived in Manila on Thursday night, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Friday.

The DFA also said seven Filipino nurses earlier reported missing in Libya have been accounted for, with five of them returning home with other Filipinos from the strife-torn north African country.

The six Filipinos, five of them nurses and an engineer, were fetched and rescued in Zitlin by Philippine officials led by Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario after being trapped in Misurata for 23 days.

Zitlin is the town closest to Misurata, Libya's third largest city. From Zitlin, the group traveled to the capital of Tripoli, then crossed the country's border with Tunisia.

With the six were three other Filipinos who were earlier brought out of Tripoli through the Tunisian border and flew out of Djerba on Tuesday, the DFA said.

The Filipinos were welcomed on their arrival by DFA officials and by a representative from the International Organization for Migration.

The six Filipinos were identified as Evangeline Garcia, Evjoalyn Calam, Catherine Galue, Valerie Joy Ventura, Celeste Canbangay, and Vincent Sanchez.

The nurses also confirmed that two other nurses, Bernadette Pavurada and Lilian Rosales, had sent them an e-mail saying they are safe and are now in Benghazi. They were part of the group of nurses working at the National Oncology Institute in Misrata who were earlier reported missing.

In the morning of March 18, Libyan government forces stormed the area where the six Filipinos were residing and camped beside their residence, just across the street where opposition forces were stationed, they told the DFA.

“What followed were days of non-stop fighting,” the DFA said of their ordeal.

“The Filipino workers were unable to leave because snipers from either side readily shot anyone seen on the street,” the DFA said.

“The nurses tended the wounds of the soldiers. Two of them said that they had to break into an abandoned pharmacy across the street to get medicines and tools to treat and even perform surgical procedures on the casualties,” the DFA said.

Their service prompted Libyan government troops to transfer the Filipinos to a safer place. “Twenty-three days later they found themselves in Zitlin, the town closest to west of Misrata where they were rescued by embassy officials,” the DFA sai