Pinoy nurses seeking jobs in US declining

MANILA, Philippines - The number of Filipino nurses seeking jobs in the United States dropped in the third quarter of the year, a lawmaker said yesterday.

LPGMA party-list Rep. Arnel Ty said only 1,370 Filipino nurses indicated their desire to seek employment in the US by taking the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX) held from July to September this year.

He said the number of NCLEX examinees was 38 percent, or 857, lower compared to the 2,227 Filipinos who took the US nursing licensure examination for the first time during the same period in 2010.

Citing statistics from the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the lawmaker said only 4,354 Filipino nurses took the NCLEX for the first time from January to September.

“This represents a decline of 44 percent, or 3,426, compared to the 7,780 Filipino nurses who took the NCLEX for the first time over the same nine-month period in 2010,” Ty said.

The number of Filipino nurses taking NCLEX for the first time, excluding repeaters, is considered a sound indicator as to how many of them want to practice their profession in the US.

Nevertheless, Ty said the Philippines remains America’s top potential supplier of foreign nurses.

He said that 1,894 nurses educated in India, South Korea, Canada and Puerto Rico also took the NCLEX for the first time from January to September.

He added that a total of 17,589 nurses educated outside the US took the NCLEX, including repeaters, during the nine-month period but only 27 percent passed the examination.

On the other hand, 152,068 US-educated nurses took the NCLEX (including repeaters), and 84 percent of them passed.

“The US labor market for foreign nurses is shrinking. America itself is producing more nurses, and fewer healthcare service providers there are making new hires in light of continuing government subsidy cutbacks,” Ty said.

The lawmaker has been pushing for new legislation that would not only provide nurses short-term gainful work, but also enable them to acquire the extra skills needed to enhance their long-term employment here or abroad.

Under House Bill 4582, Ty proposed that the jobs-cum-training plan would be an expanded version of the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service, the short-lived government project that enlisted practitioners to improve healthcare in the 1,000 poorest towns in 2009.

The bill seeks to provide a Special Program for the Employment of Nurses in Urban and Rural Services (NURSE), which aims to mobilize a total of 10,000 nursing practitioners every year.

They would serve a six-month tour of duty, and get a monthly stipend not lower than the amount commensurate to Salary Grade 15, the higher starting pay for public nurses mandated by the law.

To qualify, nurses must not be over 35 years old, and must have a valid license.

According to the Professional Regulation Commission, some 290,000 registered nurses were unemployed as of March 31 this year. This does not include the more than 37,000 nursing graduates who passed the July licensure examination.

To provide temporary jobs to nurses, the government plans to spend P1.686 billion next year to expand the Department of Health’s Doctors to the Barrio program.

The program would cover the deployment of 12,000 new nurses plus 1,000 new midwives to underserved communities.