Filipino Nursing Herald

We've just updated the list of hospitals and their requirements for hiring new applicants. Medical facilities we've added to the list: Asian Hospital, Makati Medical Center, Metropolitan Hospital, Philippine Heart Center, and the Medical City. Click here for the list .

Over the past weeks, we've received news that a number of nurses have sucessfully left for work in Canada. The employment opportunities, of course, depend so much on their performance in the Canadian Registered Nurse Exam (CRNE). Passing the CRNE is mandatory to get a nursing license in that country. Each province oversees its own nursing application program and each may have its own set of requirements, much like in the U.S. where each state have different licensing requirements. To get an overview of the application process in Canada, you can start at the Web site of the Canadian Nurses Association .

Here's another news story that just supports our earlier post about the strengthened recruitment drive in Alberta, Canada: Alberta fishing for foreign nurses More foreign nurses are expected to flock to Central Alberta after the province pumps $5 million into recruitment efforts. “It’s absolutely excellent. It’s obvious the province has made this a priority and is moving fast on it,” said Karmen Fittes, director of shared services with the David Thompson Health Region. She hopes about 50 of the foreign nurses who respond to the government initiative will end up calling the Red Deer area their home. More than 100 registered nurses are needed across the health region for the workforce of about 2,000 RNs. (Red Deer Advocate)

The Canadian federal government has given Alberta the go-ahead and C$530,000 in funding to fly overseas and recruit foreign nurses. Officials from Alberta will be able to recruit and assess nurses without requiring these nurses to fly to Calgary's Mount Royal College first to take assessment exams, CBC reports . The move is intended to help Ottawa fill thousands of nursing vacancies. The pilot program is expected to save time and money as assessors can now go directly to places that have traditionally supplied nursing manpower and evaluate them in their own countries. During the assessment program, assessors look at the nurses' experience, education, and English skills. If an education upgrade is required of a nurse, classes can be taken that lasts from a few weeks to a year. **Personal Note** This is good news for Philippine nurses who want to try their luck in Canada. We don't know yet when the first assessors from Alberta will come over, but please be alert for potential...

A growing number of Filipino caregivers are being forced out of the United Kingdom because of a new law that mandates higher salaries for care providers, BBC news reports . A new rule issued by the UK's Home Office says that employers must pay their staff a minimum of £7.02 an hour for the staff to qualify for work permit renewal. Many home care services in the UK were commissioned by local authorities which have limited budget and cannot pay the required minimum. **Supplement on visiting UK** Despite the high cost of living, many Filipinos have flocked to the UK, working not just in the medical field such as nurses or caregivers but also in the hospitality sector. Many Filipinos also go to the UK either to study or to relax. Filipino tourists regularly visit the UK's charms to sample the culture and the nightlife. There are plenty of good London hotels to choose from. Tourists can also opt to stay in any of the Edinburgh hotels or Glasgow hotels to truly experience British ...

Pulse Health, an Australian firm, is set to open a recruitment and training center in the Philippines with hopes of recruiting over 400 nurses and carers for facilities intended to care for elderly, disabled or recuperating patients in Australia. Read the Business Day report here .

With retrogression, hospitals in the US have temporarily suspended their sponsorship programs for foreign nurses. Some continue their recruitment efforts but the most they can do is file for the Petition for Alien Worker or I-140. When visas become available, look for US hospitals to start sponsoring foreign RN again. Here are a few hospitals in Southern California that have sponsored foreign RNs in the past: Saint John's Health Center - www.stjohns.org Good Samaritan Hospital - www.goodsamcareers.org Tenet California - teamtenet.com Enloe Medical Center - www.enloe.org Antelope Valley Hospital - www.avhospital.org White Memorial Hospital - www.whitememorial.com Just like other hospitals, these facilities have put their foreign recruitment efforts on hold, but look for them once there's some relief from retrogression. IMPORTANT NOTE: This posting should not be seen as an endorsement, rather it is for information purposes only. Please do your own research into these facilities f...

Kaiser Permanente is one of the biggest hospital staff employers in the US. They have headquarters in Oakland, California and are located in 9 states and in Washington, D.C. I've heard many good feedback about Kaiser and how they treat their employees well. But getting on board Kaiser is a difficult process if you don't have any hospital experience, particularly U.S. hospital experience. A hospital recruiter told me that Kaiser in South California does not sponsor foreign nurses, but Kaiser facilities in North California do. So, once visa retrogression is out, I would recommend those with years of experience to check out this potential employer.

Here's good news from the United Arab Emirates. The government is allowing nurses on visit visas to sit for their nursing exam and take on jobs with private hospitals. Read the story here . You must have at least three years work experience before you can work in UAE, but the government is looking to trim this down to two years.

Some 3,000 male Saudi nursing graduates are still waiting for jobs, reports The Arab News. Dr. Obaid Al-Obaid, vice minister for planning and development at the Ministry of Health, claims there is a surplus of male nurses but a shortage of female nurses in the Kingdom. Female nurses comprise 35 percent of all nurses working at government hospitals in the Kingdom while male nurses make up 32 percent. “The number of jobless Saudi male nurses will unfortunately increase by the end of this year to reach 6,000 to 7,000,” said Al-Obaid.

Filipino nurses who are already in the US, might be interested to visit these scheduled career fairs organized by Nursing Spectrum . Although retrogression is still in effect, it won't hurt to meet possible employers when the visa restrictions are resolved: Upcoming Career Fairs for 2007 October October 18 Oakland, CA October 23 Las Vegas, NV October 24 Baltimore, MD October 24 Tinley Park, IL October 26 Edison, NJ November November 6 Dallas, TX November 8 Ft. Lauderdale, FL November 13 Seattle, WA November 13 San Diego, CA

A local recruitment firm and its Australian partner are discussing a proposal for the Australian firm to subsidize the cost of deploying Filipino workers Down Under. If this proposal pans out, Filipinos who are recruited to Australia would have less financial burdens to worry about. Read the news here .

The New York Times and Vault.com offer an excellent collection of anecdotal articles about what goes on in a typical day for various types of jobs in the US. So, while waiting for a relief from the retrogression blues, let's take a peek into a typical day of a medical-surgical nurse in the US. Dan Bratton, a registered nurse who works on the medical-surgical floor of the Good Samaritan General Hospital in New York, lets us in on a typical day for him at the hospital. Read about Bratton's day here .

Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius (Photo from Wikipedia ) The African Press Agency reports that Mauritius --an island nation off the coast of Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometers east of Madagascar--may open its doors to foreign nurses. The island state has been losing nurses to France, which has its own nursing shortage of about 25,000 positions. Mauritians are fluent in French and English is taught in schools, that's why they're being recruited to France.

New Zealand is a beautiful country. Its breathtaking landscape and unpolluted air are only a few of the things to love about this country. I've thought about moving to New Zealand even before I took up nursing and now that I have a higher chance of getting into the country with a nursing degree, the temptation is more intense, especially since there's so much uncertainty regarding the US nursing industry right now. So, when I was asked few days ago what I think about moving to New Zealand, I already had a ready answer. If you want to take out the uncertainty and want to move out in a definite time, New Zealand looks very promising compared to the US, where there's no telling when the retrogression will end. Applications for NZ are pretty much very straightforward--just get all the paperwork done and you've got high chances of landing a nursing job there, especially if you already have some work experience tucked under your belt. (Although experience is not required b...

While waiting out the retrogression, now is the best time to complete all your documents, get the NCLEX done (if you haven't done so), and perhaps earn some work experience (if you're not employed yet). Although not all employers in the U.S. require experience, it'll be good to boost your own confidence especially if you're a young fresh graduate. Don't let the retrogression get you down, the worldwide nursing shortage won't be gone in a day. Read this story , for instance, of a hospital in Southwest Florida which is contemplating international recruitment efforts. An excerpt from the article, reads: International recruitment . Lee Memorial brought in 54 nurses from India who were under contract with Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center and Gulf Coast Hospital before Lee Memorial purchased those two facilities. If the nurses work out — and by all appearances they are — Lee Memorial might again look overseas for staff. Other data to think about: Hospitals ar...

A new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers says the U.S. medical workforce system needs resuscitative care. It says that even though there are more doctors and nurses today than ever before, they are not being trained, distributed or deployed efficiently. A huge decline in the number of nurses will begin in less than three years but hospital employers are still in denial about just bad nurses feel about their work conditions. Read the official media release on the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report here .

Earlier this year, the Norwegian government said it was contemplating the recruitment of foreign-educated nurses to fill its own nursing shortage, which is expected to reach as large as 100,000 positions in the next few decades. The plan, however, is being blocked by the Norwegian Nurses Association. Since this story came out in the Norway Post, I haven't seen any other update anywhere on the Internet. If you find any additional news on this, please let us know, so we can share it to everyone.

Saudi's Ministry of Health and Hospital Operations is recruiting up to 5,000 nurses from the Philippines, according to the Philippine Information Agency. It seems that a recruitment drive in Mindanao by the Saudi government through local partner firms failed to attract enough nurses, that's why they're now recruiting from Manila. Unfortunately for male nurses, Saudi is specifically looking for female nurses only.

A global shortage of nurses is also taking its toll in the United Arab Emirates, reports the Dubai-based online tabloid Xpress. This rich Arab state has had difficulties retaining its nurses, of whom 91% were recruited either from the Philippines or India, because many nursing professionals use their experience in the UAE as leverage to get more lucrative jobs in the UK, US or Australia. Training UAE nationals to become nurses does not look very promising because nursing requires direct patient contact and working in shifts, which clash with local culture and traditions, according to a hospital recruiter in the country. The average monthly salary of nurses in Dubai ranges from Dh2,000 and Dh9,000. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, nurses' salaries are between 12,000 and 18,000 Saudi riyals (Dh11,750-Dh17,600). Check US nursing salaries here .