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By Nora O. Gamolo, OFW TIMES
Editor
The Philippine Nurses Association
(PNA) has declared its strong support to the implementation of the
CHED Memorandum Order No. 5, series of 2008, that it considers as
“intended to provide quality and relevant nursing education.”
PNA is the accredited
professional organization of nurses of the Philippine Regulations
Commission. It has 92 local chapters nationwide and nine foreign
chapters based abroad.
Represented by Dr. Leah Primitiva
G. Samaco-Paquiz, its national president, PNA said it fully believes
and supports the rationale of the new and enhanced four-year
Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program.
The new nursing curriculum has
become quite controversial over reports that a five-year curriculum
has been designed to add one more year and a substantial number of
units to an already stiff academic program.
The nursing curriculum has become
the bone of contention since it is always taken as the first
preparation for Filipino nurses in entering a profession for which
they are globally noted in terms of both clinical and social skills.
It is the basis for the training of hundreds of thousands of nurses
who practice this profession all over the world.
The Commission on Higher
Education (CHED), that oversees all academic programs in the
tertiary level, has belied the allegation of a new five-year nursing
curriculum, clarifying that a new four-year nursing program will be
in effect starting this schoolyear.
“This new BSN Program aims to
produce a fully functioning nurse who is able to perform the
competencies under each of the Key Areas of Responsibility as
enumerated in Article IV, section 5 of CMO #5,” said Paquiz.
Among the standards or
competencies guaranteed in CMO #5 are safe and quality nursing care;
management of resources and environment; health education; legal
responsibility; ethico-moral responsibility; personal and
professional development; quality improvement; research; records
management; communication; and collaboration and teamwork.
All nurses trained in the
Philippines are thus prepared to assume these orientation and
skills, made possible by four years training in applying nursing
skills in the school, hospital and community levels, including in
health advocacy.
Paquiz is a member of the CHED
Technical Committee on Nursing Education (TCNE).
PNA has been part of the
discussions on the policies and standards of the new four-year BSN
Program.
She clarified that the five-year
BSN program that was proposed by the previous CHED TCNE was not
approved by CHED, and thus was never implemented. It never gained
ground and support because aside from being too long a program, it
is going to be more expensive.
“What we have is still a
four-year BSN curriculum which was enhanced and reconfigured for
development of competencies. The additional related learning
experiences [RLE] hours which are 357 RLE hours equivalent to seven
units are spread through the four-year curriculum from levels 1 to
4,” said Paquiz.
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