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The American Nurses Association
(ANA) has added to the woes of the Filipino nurses of batch June
2006 licensure exam: ANA urges them to retake the entire licensure
exam not just Tests 3 and 5.
ANA’s
members include hospital nursing supervisors and administrators
throughout the United States. They have a say in the hiring of
hospital personnel.
In a news
release to the US media, ANA said: “Following the investigations
by the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS)
and the Philippine government, it was discovered that at least 110
questions (22 percent) of the 500 question exam were known by large
numbers of examinees and test preparation operators.”
“It is clear
that the exam was significantly compromises. In the interest of
public health and safety, ANA believes that every effort must be
made to protect the professional exam and licensure process in order
to uphold the public trust and confidence,” ANA President Rebecca
M. Patton was quoted to have said.
The
Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) learned about this
recommendation from a letter of Patton dated February 28 and
addressed to the PRC Board of Nursing chairman.
The PRC BON
has not informed the June 2006 batch and the public of this letter.
Patton told
the PRC that her association’s board of directors “gave serious
consideration to the implications the compromised exam, particularly
given the public’s reliance on this process as a measure of
nursing knowledge. As a result of these deliberations, the ANA Board
passed a resolution stating that all passing applicants of the June
2006 Philippine nurse licensure examination, wishing to be
considered for entrance into the United States to practice nursing,
should be required to retake a new and different nurse licensure
test and obtain a passing score.”
She added:
“This action should not in any way penalize or be unduly
burdensome to the impacted nurses. ANA certainly understands that
the June 2006 applicants who passed the examination are lawfully
licensed to practice nursing in the Philippines.”
Patton started
her letter with the statement that the association “appreciates
the difficulty related to events as they have unfolded since the
June 2006 nursing examination. It is clear that this has been a very
trying time for nurses and nursing in the Philippines. Recognizing
that this is a matter of the public’s health and safety, ANA
stands in solidarity with you as you pursue all strategies to
restore the integrity of the professional nursing examination and
licensure process.”
She also said
“The United States clearly benefits from the many excellent
Philippine nurses who come here to practice nursing.”
But she made
it clear that the ANA’s recommendation is being made precisely to
make sure that the health of Americans are not made to suffer by the
entry to the USA of Filipino nurses who might not have been properly
tested or became licensed nurses despite “the compromised exam.”
ANA, the only
full-service professional organization representing the interests of
the USA’s 2.9 million registered nurses with 54 constituent member
nurses organizations, released its recommendation “to the
Philippine government” to the US medical media on March 2.
The Filipino
nurses belonging to the “retake faction” in the controversy
issued a statement reviewing the mishandling of the exam leakage
problem by the PRC. (See page A5 for full text.)
The statement
was issued by the UST Faculty Association of the College of Nursing,
the Binuklod na Samahan ng mga Student Nurses and the League of
Concerned Nurses.
Professor Rene
M. Tadle, president of the UST nursing faculty association, told The
Times PRC chairperson, Dr. Leonor Rosero, should resign for her
agency’s “grave mishandling of the leakage scandal, efforts to
cover up the leakage and silence the whistleblowers, and giving
false hopes to the nurses.”
The other
signatories of the statement, Angelo S. Brant, of the student nurses
federation (Binuklod na Samahan) and Earl Francis R. Sumile,
president of the League of Concerned Nurses, told The Times retaking
Tests 3 and 5 as they had urged as early as July should have solved
the problem.
“Instead,
the PRC even tried to harm our reputation, those of us who are for
retake,” Sumile said.
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