Nurses’ group calls for just wages

MANILA, Philippines – A group of Filipino nurses has called on the national government to provide decent employment and just wages for health workers.

Instead of pushing nurses to seek employment abroad, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) said the government should set adequate entry-level wages.

“We call on the Aquino government to provide just wage for nurses by implementing an entry-level salary of P25,000 in both public and private sectors, provide decent jobs and put an end to nurses’ contractualization, ” FNU executive committee member Eleanor Nolasco said in a statement yesterday.

Majority of nurses work under dismal conditions, get starvation-level wages with no job security, no benefits and in many instances even work as “volunteers” with no pay just to gain hospital experience, she said.

Nolasco said nurses in private hospitals are given monthly salaries as low as P6,000 while those working in local government units are called “nurse trainees” and given P2,000 monthly allowance with no benefits.

She accused the Aquino administration of selling Filipino nurses to other countries suffering from a shortage of health workers.

Employment abroad is not the solution to curb the high number of unemployed nurses in the country and could even be “fatal to our country's health care system,” she said.

Nolasco said the Aquino administration can effectively address the nurses’ plight and the dismal health care situation in the country by ensuring fair treatment of nurses and the availability of decent nursing jobs so they will opt to stay in the country and serve the Filipino people.

“While the Philippines is considered the number one exporter of nurses in the world, supplying 25 percent of all overseas nurses, six out of 10 Filipinos die without receiving professional medical attention,” Nolasco said.