Filipino Nursing Herald

A couple of days ago I blogged about the plight of 3,000 male nurses in Saudi who can't find jobs. The kingdom's ministry of health chief thinks that's already a crisis. In the Philippines, government officials wouldn't even bat an eyelash if tens of thousands of nurses today are unemployed. Just digest these figures a bit: In December 2006, around 20,000 Filipino nurses passed the bi-annual licensure exam conducted by the country's Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC). In the following exams, some 32,000 made it to become registered nurses as well. How many of these successful exam-takers do you think has been employed? With retrogression still a major hurdle in the US job market, how many of our registered nurses are actually working? Even with other markets, outside the US are open, such as the Middle East, how many have actually found employment? To add to our woes, the 32,000 nurses who passed the June 2007 exams still don't have actual licenses yet. So...

The Association of Nursing Service Administrators of the Philippines (ANSAP Inc.) regulates Intravenous Therapy (IVT) training seminars in the country. For upcoming training schedules, you can call them at (63)7163901 loc. 383.

Just got back from a trip, so I haven't been able to update lately. I've got a whole chest-full of new ideas that I plan to write about and I think I just might have the extra time now to write more, so expect better things from this blog. In the meantime, I was surfing the Web for some relevant news that I missed while I was away and here are some of the noteworthy issues that you might also like to look up: Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) Sen. Aquilino Pimentel was quoted in the papers this week saying the controversial JPEPA might be ratified by our Senate. This legislation will, among other things, open up work opportunities for Filipino caregivers and nurses in Japan. Initially the number of workers have been limited to 400, but hopefully this would increase in the future. Australia needs nurses Raul V. Hernandez, honorary consul to Melbourne, said Australia would need 10,000 nurses in the next three years. Philippine doctors leaving as nurses Th...

A contingent of 30 nurses and midwives from Brunei have arrived in the country to visit local hospitals as part of an educational trip organized by the RIPAS Hospital in Brunei. The healthcare workers will visit several local health institutions, including the Philippine General Hospital and the Makati Medical Center, as part of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit Continuous Nursing Education (SICU CNE) Program. The group will be in the country until June 30.

Filipino nurses looking to earn additional credits for continuing education may be interested in seminar's being conducted by the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA). Here's their tentative schedule as of June 2007: July 06 Understanding Hemodynamic Monitoring July 13 Looking through Congenital Heart Defects July 19 Seminar in Research (PART 1) July 20 Operating Room Instrumentation and Techniques July 26 Seminar in Research (PART 2) July 27 Diabetes Mellitus August 02 Seminar in Research (PART 3) August 03 Suctioning Technique: Focus on Closed Suction Technique August 09 Seminar in Research (PART 4) August 10 Tuberculosis: Strategies for Prevention August 17-18 Nursing Skills Fair August 24 Understanding Basic EKG August 31 Basic Hospital Infection Control Course September 07 PICC Lines: Hands- On Approach to Learning September 14 Patient Safety Goals September 21 Basic Hospital Infection Control Course September 28-29 Nursing Skills Fair October 05 Cardiovascular Support Dru...

I came across this interesting poster of male nurses that was used by the Oregon Center of Nursing in 2004 to recruit more men into the nursing field. Obviously, women have dominated the nursing field and largely outnumber male nurses. Studies in the U.S. reveal that there are only about 146,902 male nurses or just 5.4% of the total nursing population in that country. Men in nursing is an intriguing area of study in the Philippines, where nursing has been historically defined as a domain of women. Studies of Philippine culture would show that caring for the sick and nursing the wounded have always been a job for the women. Men, on the other hand, do male chores like planting rice, fixing the house and drinking "lambanog" at the end of the day. It is the image of the Filipina mother that is more compassionate, more caring, and thus more capable of being a carer for the sick than Filipino men. Men were regarded as incapable of showing compassion and lacked a true caring attitu...

Nursing school tuition in the Philippines can run up to P60,000 or more per semester. Depending on the institution, tuition will probably cost from P500 to P800 per unit for mid to low-end colleges. High end schools would probably charge P100,000 or more per school semester. Hospital affiliation fees command huge pay outs, ranging from P20,000 to over P35,000 per semester. Affiliation fees are what students pay supposedly for being allowed to intern at a hospital, but if you look at what students these days are getting from their hospital experience, you'd think hospital internships are nothing more than just glorified training for taking vital signs--blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiratory rates. There's simply too much of that going on but too little of real nursing education about patient care and safe drug administration. Clinical instructors who are supposed to teach students eight hours every meeting, spend less than two hours with students because they've ...

In April, the Philippines and Bahrain signed a memorandum of agreement opening up opportunities for Filipino doctors and nurses in the fastest growing economy in the Arab region. In return, Arab medical workers will come to the Philippines to train and gain experience. The Philippine Ambassador to Bahrain says Filipinos have started to flood the Bahraini work place. In 2006, there were 11,736 Filipino workers being hired and re-hired in the state known as the Pearl of the Persian Gulf. That's 17.7% more than in 2005 when only 9,968 Pinoys were recruited in the state that's claimed to be the site of the Gardem of Eden in the Bible. With the door now wide open to Pinoy medical workers, we can be sure that the number of Filipino contract workers in Bahrain will only shoot up, just like oil rising from this mineral-rich nation. There's an estimated 40,000 Filipinos now living in Bahrain, 5,000 of which are dependents, while another 5,000 are undocumented workers.

Over 15,000 Filipino nurses leave the country every year to work abroad, primarily in the United States, the UK and Ireland. Although this number might have gone down last year and maybe even this year because of the retrogression on Schedule A visas in the US, the diaspora is expected to accelerate anew once the US Congress ratifies a new immigration bill that covers the recruitment of nurses into the country. Some experts are predicting that legislation needed to allow new nurses into the country might come as early as April, while others think October is a more practical target. The more conservative soothsayers believe it might come early next year. Whether it comes tomorrow or the next decade, one thing is certain-- Filipino nurses would be the first to queue at the US immigration office. The promise of an economically-stable life attracts many Filipino nurses to pursue work abroad. Many veteran nurses have left local hospitals for nursing homes and hospitals in California, Illino...