NARS won't make RP nurses attractive abroad
MANILA, Philippines - The government’s plan to send jobless Filipino nurses to rural areas for training will not make them any attractive for overseas jobs, a recruitment leader said.
Jackson Gan, vice-president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters said the government’s Nurses Assigned in Rural Areas (NARS) program might be laudable in giving Filipino nurses the job experience they need but hospitals abroad require nurses to have training in specialty areas that are only available in urban hospitals.
“Trained nurses in specialty areas like surgical ward, burn ICU (Intensive Care Unit), neo-natal icu, cardiac cath lab, nursery nurses, pedia, cardio-vascular, emergency, therapy, and clinical wards which are in demand in the Middle East and Western countries like the USA, UK, Australia and Canada," Gan said.
Launched by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, NARS aims to address the glut in inexperienced nurses; the proliferation of volunteer nurses who pay the hospitals to obtain work experience; and provide healthcare to rural areas in the country.
Under the said program, unemployed nurses will be made to return to their hometowns for a six-month tour of duty and will be given P8,000 a month as stipend or allowance. (For more information click on the Labor department’s website)
But Gan said funds for the NARS program should be diverted instead to the improvement of government hospital facilities in both rural and urban areas “so that more nurses can be hired in those areas and accumulate the training needed for work abroad."
“This is a much better way in helping the plight of unemployed nurses instead of sending them to the provinces to do clinical work which is not the requirement abroad," Gan added.
Citing industry figures, Gan said more than 100,000 licensed nurses are unemployed because private and government hospitals do not have the funds to hire them.
Philippine Nurses Association National President Leah Primitiva Samaco-Paquiz said the perceived oversupply of nurses is really caused by the inability of Philippine hospitals to create additional plantilla positions for fresh graduates.
Paquiz said some hospitals are exploiting their nursing students to do the tasks that should have been relegated to registered nurses.
She proposed a short-term solution to the unemployment of Filipino nurses.
“They could hang a nurse signage outside their homes and then the community can ask for health education," Paquiz told GMANews.TV in an earlier interview.
"If lawyers can hang their names outside so could nurses. We could also ask for consultation fees," she added.
Filipino nurses are keeping their eyes on greener pastures abroad as 15,079 graduates took the US licensure exams for the first time from January to September 2008, Ernesto Herrera, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines secretary-general said.
But this could cause the quality of the Philippine’s health sector to decline, Dr. Carol Araullo, chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) earlier said.
"The bulk of our nurses go abroad, the ones left are the new graduates, thus the quality of our health care declines," said Araullo.
She added that this “short-sighted labor export policy" has caused our hospitals to lose experienced medical consultants and doctors who have converted to nursing.
Just recently, the Philippines' migration movement scheme for health worker earned praise at the Global Policy Advisory Council on Health Workers Migration Meeting in Oslo, Norway.
A report from the Philippine embassy in Oslo said participants at the meeting hailed the Philippine scheme as a model worth emulating by both receiving and sending countries of the world.
"The meeting expressed admiration at how the Philippines has developed a cycle of management, from the initial stage of providing training and developing expertise in the medical fields, to assistance before departure and while in the destination countries, until their return to Philippine society where they are provided reintegration support such as capital and re-tooling skills," the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on its website. - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV
Jackson Gan, vice-president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters said the government’s Nurses Assigned in Rural Areas (NARS) program might be laudable in giving Filipino nurses the job experience they need but hospitals abroad require nurses to have training in specialty areas that are only available in urban hospitals.
“Trained nurses in specialty areas like surgical ward, burn ICU (Intensive Care Unit), neo-natal icu, cardiac cath lab, nursery nurses, pedia, cardio-vascular, emergency, therapy, and clinical wards which are in demand in the Middle East and Western countries like the USA, UK, Australia and Canada," Gan said.
Launched by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, NARS aims to address the glut in inexperienced nurses; the proliferation of volunteer nurses who pay the hospitals to obtain work experience; and provide healthcare to rural areas in the country.
Under the said program, unemployed nurses will be made to return to their hometowns for a six-month tour of duty and will be given P8,000 a month as stipend or allowance. (For more information click on the Labor department’s website)
But Gan said funds for the NARS program should be diverted instead to the improvement of government hospital facilities in both rural and urban areas “so that more nurses can be hired in those areas and accumulate the training needed for work abroad."
“This is a much better way in helping the plight of unemployed nurses instead of sending them to the provinces to do clinical work which is not the requirement abroad," Gan added.
Citing industry figures, Gan said more than 100,000 licensed nurses are unemployed because private and government hospitals do not have the funds to hire them.
Philippine Nurses Association National President Leah Primitiva Samaco-Paquiz said the perceived oversupply of nurses is really caused by the inability of Philippine hospitals to create additional plantilla positions for fresh graduates.
Paquiz said some hospitals are exploiting their nursing students to do the tasks that should have been relegated to registered nurses.
She proposed a short-term solution to the unemployment of Filipino nurses.
“They could hang a nurse signage outside their homes and then the community can ask for health education," Paquiz told GMANews.TV in an earlier interview.
"If lawyers can hang their names outside so could nurses. We could also ask for consultation fees," she added.
Filipino nurses are keeping their eyes on greener pastures abroad as 15,079 graduates took the US licensure exams for the first time from January to September 2008, Ernesto Herrera, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines secretary-general said.
But this could cause the quality of the Philippine’s health sector to decline, Dr. Carol Araullo, chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) earlier said.
"The bulk of our nurses go abroad, the ones left are the new graduates, thus the quality of our health care declines," said Araullo.
She added that this “short-sighted labor export policy" has caused our hospitals to lose experienced medical consultants and doctors who have converted to nursing.
Just recently, the Philippines' migration movement scheme for health worker earned praise at the Global Policy Advisory Council on Health Workers Migration Meeting in Oslo, Norway.
A report from the Philippine embassy in Oslo said participants at the meeting hailed the Philippine scheme as a model worth emulating by both receiving and sending countries of the world.
"The meeting expressed admiration at how the Philippines has developed a cycle of management, from the initial stage of providing training and developing expertise in the medical fields, to assistance before departure and while in the destination countries, until their return to Philippine society where they are provided reintegration support such as capital and re-tooling skills," the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on its website. - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV
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