Filipino Nursing Herald

Many things about our world bother me. High up on my list is discrimation and racism. Almost everyday, I hear stories of Filipinos being discriminated on just because of our race. Many efforts have been done to resolve this worrisome situation, but a lot more effort is needed to make it go away. I've heard stories about Canada being a land of promises. Some of my relatives have lived there for a long time and some of them have become successful. Yet, the truth about its broken immigration policies and its highly discriminative work environment is truly troublesome. Take this Web site (www.notcanada.com), for example, and see a part of this country's almost hidden identity. Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Joe Volpe acknowledges the issue. Read his comments here on W-Five's story . Even Filipino nurses who have years of experience are forced to work in the lowest positions when they go to Canada. I've heard about a nurse director from one of the larg...

Here's a sad case of a Filipino nurse who was suspended from the hospital he worked for in the U.K. Based on the charges brought against him, it was said he "lacked competence" both in his nursing skills and his English communication skills. I feel sorry for this man and I hope we all get some lessons from his experience. I know a lot of people who've taken up nursing so that they can take advantage of the many opportunities for nurses in other countries, but before you set out for greener pastures, I urge you to try to keep the high standards that Filipino nurses have been known for. Assess yourself, see where you're weak at, and seek ways of improving your skills. Try to get some hospital experience, even if some employers don't require you to get one. There are good training programs out there. If that doesn't work out, do some volunteer work; a couple of these volunteer programs are very good. Do this for yourself so that you'll be more confident ...

If you haven't decided yet on which nursing specialty you want to go into or if you're tired of the humdrum of the medical-surgical floor, here's an emerging nursing specialty that you might want to check out. It's called "blackbelt nursing"--where the first intervention for an aggressive or violent client is to deliver a karate chop as a sedative. I'm just kidding, of course. But you never know how things progress in the future. Check out this story from news.com.au: Docs, nurses take self-defense

A Filipino nurse in the United Kingdom got a reprieve from the British government, which had earlier wanted to kick him out for missing a deadline for the filling of an immigration form. Aldrin Quibuyen, a nurse who works at Caeffair Nursing Home in Llanelli, was allowed to stay in the country after being granted a reprieve by House of Commons, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne. Quibuyen has been in the UK since 2003, while his wife and son Buzz joined him in 2004. They have a daughter, Phebe, who was born in the UK.

Time is running out for five Bulgarin nurses and a Palestinian doctor who was sentenced to death by Libyan authorities for deliberately infecting up to 400 children with AIDS. The medical workers have been in custody since 1999, after being sentenced to death row in 2004 and in an appeal in 2006. EU officials led by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also the German foreign minister is leading an international appeal to free the medical workers. Will Libyan authorities give in to the appeal? Being a nurse myself, it's pretty hard to imagine infecting as many as 400 children with a blood-borne disease like AIDS, unless all of them received the same AIDS-tinged blood. Perhaps if you use the same scalpel on as many mothers in-labor without disinfecting it after every use, then there might be a chance you could infect 100 perhaps? But 400? Unlike a staphylococcal infection, AIDS isn't easily transmitted through infected objects we pass around. That's why it can only be transmitted throug...