DOH urged: Prioritize new board passers amid nursing shortage
MANILA, Philippines — An association of nurses has called on the Department of Health to prioritize tapping the thousands of unemployed nurses who passed recent board exams instead of hiring unlicensed nurses in government hospitals.
This was after Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said Monday that the DOH will allow nursing graduates who failed their board exam with scores between 70 to 74% to be given temporary licenses to work in understaffed state hospitals.
Filipino Nurses United Secretary General Jocelyn Andamo questioned the decision, citing the number of nurses who passed recent licensure exams and are still in the Philippines.
“How can we encourage them to serve their own country? That should be the most immediate concern and point of action,” Andamo said in Filipino in a TeleRadyo interview.
Andamo said that there were at least 18,000 nurses who passed the December 2022 nursing board exam.
“Has the DOH located and found out whether all of these (board passers) have found jobs? Our stand is to prioritize first those who passed the board so that they can be given jobs and encouraged to work in the country,” Andamo said in Filipino.
Andamo added that if the DOH wants to retain nurses in the Philippines, it should also first address issues with nurses’ pay, job security and benefits.
According to the 2022 Salary Standardization Law, the starting monthly salary for nurses in the government is set at P32,097, whereas entry-level nurses in the private sector receive a monthly pay ranging from P8,000 to P13,500.
Herbosa said the DOH’s plan to hire unlicensed nursing graduates could address the country's nursing shortage as health professionals continue to leave the country in droves due to better employment prospects abroad.
Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel said in a statement that Herbosa's plan emphasized the need to "protect the integrity" of the country's testing system by strictly adhering to its 75% minimum passing grade.
Data presented by the Commission on Higher Education in March show that there is around a 126,044 gap to meet the number of required nurses as benchmarked by the World Health Organization.
Based on government data, FNU has said that 316,405 or 51% of the 617,898 licensed nurses in the Philippines have migrated to other countries. Only 172,598 or 28% are working in local healthcare facilities. -- Cristina Chi
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