Are you a Board Passer Nurse Without a Job? Maybe You Also Lack Hospital Training and Experience.
Based on what has been reported in many news angle, it seems that the lack of training facility for nursing graduates such as local hospitals, including government-owned and controlled in the Philippines are producing more and more unemployed nurses.
Although many of our unemployed nurses passed the local nursing board, one of the key pain of nursing recruiters in the country is the lack of the nurses’ experience and training in actual hospital work. Without it, they cannot be endorsed to potential foreign employers who are seeking experienced nurses only.
The root cause of the problem is not the oversupply of nurses per se but the lack of government funding even to hire these nurses in the government-owned hospitals. If the government can allocate funds for this and provide even temporary employment to our nurses, then they can go out and find work elsewhere after.
The sad news is, there are reported cases that some new nurses are even sacrificing and more than willing to pay the local hospital just to admit them so they can have work experience in their resumes. This is becoming a trend and some folks are reported to be benefiting from it.
It is also well known that there are a lot of shortage of nurses and doctors in most of the government owned hospitals aside from the scary facilities that have not been refreshed for years due to lack of funding. Some patient are more afraid of contracting sickness inside government hospitals than their ailments.
We urged the Philippine government to look into this funding solution quickly. Adding necessary funding to local government hospitals so they can hire nurses (and doctors) to gain experience is a win-win trade off not only for the nurses but also for the sick Filipino folks as well.
Does Practical Nursing Really Has Badly Affected Supply and Demand for Filipino/Pinoy Nurses Locally and Abroad?
There is a question now if the proliferation of Practical Nursing Courses has badly affected the current supply and demand of nurses in the Philippines and its impact to the impression of potential employers abroad.
Even before, the Philppine Nursing Association (PNA) had reportedly opposed the institutionalization of Practical (PN) in the country and its insertion by the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) through a 4-level ladderization of the nursing curriculum. PN is just one of those four levels. The other three are for certified nursing aides (CNA), applied science in nursing (ASN-RN) and registered nursing (RN).
The PNA, an umbrella organization of various nursing groups in the country, earlier said that PN schools only contribute to the dilemma of job availability for registered nurses. The organization said that there is no local demand or specific job positions in the Philippine health care delivery system for Practical Nurses.
It likewise noted that there is no licensure for practical nurses provided in Republic Act 9173 or Philippine Nursing Act to provide legal basis for the “institution of Practical Nursing.”
Despite this, it did not stop PN schools accredited by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) from pushing for the ladderization of PN and ASN-RN.
Gregory Tyrone Howard, president of the National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses in America said Filipino PN graduates could qualify in the US if schools introduce a US-approved PN course.
But this doesn’t solve the issue if the Practical Nursing course is the culprit behind the dwindling job demand for our Registered Nurses. The government should look into this report and see where they need to really control or limit the Practical Nursing courses from even further affecting the Nursing profession in general.