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By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk Editor
For decades, nurses have been among the most
exportable of Filipino professionals.
Starting in the late 1950s, nurses sought work
in the United States, which remains a major job destination for
them. In the 1960s, they trained their sights on Canada. From later
that decade to the present, they have been seeking employment in
various countries of the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia
and Libya. In the 1990s, they also started going to the United
Kingdom in droves.
Now, nurses are among those envisioned to be
exported to Japan. In fact, one of the most pressing considerations
for the ratification of the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic
Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) is the possibility for Filipino nurses
to enter this labor-stringent country.
In 2007, more than 21,000 new Filipino nurses
sought US jobs, according to the country’s biggest labor
federation, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.
Trade Union spokesman Alex Aguilar said a total
of 21,499 Filipinos took the US National Council Licensure
Examination (NCLEX) for nurses for the first time—that is,
excluding repeaters—from January to December 2007.
This represents an increase of 6,328 or 42
percent compared to 2006, when 15,171 Filipinos took the NCLEX for
the first time.
He said the 2007 NCLEX statistics, released on
January 24 by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing,
“solidified” the Philippines’ position as America’s top
supplier of foreign nurses.
In 2007, the Philippines readily topped the five
countries with the most number of nationals taking the NCLEX for the
first time. India came second, with 5,370 examinees; followed by
South Korea, 1,906; Canada, 888; and Cuba, 673.
Passing the NCLEX is usually the final step in
the nurse licensure process in the US. Thus, the number of people
taking the examination is a reliable indicator of how many new
US-educated and foreign-trained nurses are trying to enter the
profession in the US.
The Trade Union has been pushing for the
deployment of surplus nurses and other highly skilled workers to
lucrative job markets overseas, rather than the overseas deployment
of unskilled workers such as domestic helpers whose “skills are
easily replaceable” and “far more susceptible to employer
abuse,” Aguilar said.
Filipino nurses looking for greener pastures
could definitely count on greater employment opportunities in the
US, where more than 800 new hospitals will be put up until 2012.
Aguilar said some 78 million American baby
boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—now compose 26 percent
of the 300-million US population. The oldest baby boomers started
turning 60 years old in 2006, he added.
“These seniors and the deluge of migrants from
Mexico are creating a huge demand for hospitalization and health
care in the US,” Aguilar said.
He played down fears of a brain drain with the
continuing deployment of Filipino nurses to overseas labor markets.
Because of the lucrative jobs available
overseas, the nursing profession is one of the most popular in the
Philippines.
In August 2007, the Professional Regulation
Commission admitted to the local nursing profession a total of
31,275 candidates who passed the June 2007 licensure examination.
This does not include the thousands of candidates who took the
December 2007 nursing eligibility examination.
On top of those who took the December
examination, the commission said it expects anywhere from 80,000 to
100,000 nursing graduates to take the June 2008 licensure test.
Meanwhile, the Trade Union has renewed its
objection to a bill filed in the House of Representatives that seeks
to require nurses who obtained government-subsidized schooling to
render at least two years of compulsory local service before they
can leave for overseas employment.
The bill seeks to obligate nursing graduates of
state colleges and universities to perform 24 months of service here
before they may be lawfully recruited to work abroad. The Trade
Union said the bill was “totally counterproductive and
uncalled-for,” considering the massive oversupply of nurses in the
local labor market.
“We are now producing nurses at a rate of
100,000 to 150,000 every year, and less than 5 percent of them are
getting employed locally, either by the government or the private
sector. So we definitely have a large surplus of nurses,” he said.
“Our sense is, if we must advance the export
of services. We might as well consciously encourage the deployment
of highly skilled surplus professionals, such as nurses, who are
generally immune from employer mistreatment,” Aguilar said.
Better protection needed
The Trade Union’s position, however, is being
belied by the convoluted issues surrounding the Sentosa 27++ nurses.
Even highly trained and respected Filipino nurses, among the most
sought after, are no longer immune from the issues of mistreatment,
if the complaining Sentosa nurses are to be believed.
Leah Primitiva Samco-Paquiz, president of the
Philippine Nursing Association, also called for better protection
for nurses in the proposed JPEPA, which she charged will only give
$400 training allowance to any professional Filipino nurse who
hasn’t passed Japan’s stiff nursing licensure examination.
Even those already practicing as professional
nurses have to take the examination. Failure to pass it in three
years will cause the deportation of the nurse back to the country,
Paquiz said.
“It will only ensure a supply of low-paid
nurses to Japan,” she added.
She also called for a program for government to
streamline recruitment of nurses and assist families of Overseas
Filipino Workers in dealing with labor-migration issues, calling
attention to the need for a database of all nurses working inside
and outside the country to be drawn up to track their welfare.
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