Hopes rise for Pinoy nurses seeking employment in US

WASHINGTON — There is hope for thousands of Filipino nurses whose visa applications to work in the United States have been frozen.

Two Democrats in the US House of Representatives have filed bills seeking to make it easier for Filipino nurses to enter the US while the Philippine embassy in Washington is lobbying strongly for their passage.

The embassy on Friday unveiled what it said was a three-pronged strategy to promote the continued deployment of Filipino nurses to the US.

It said it would make official representations with the State Department to stress that since the US has an acute need for nurses that the Philippines can readily supply, both governments can pursue a "win-win" solution to the problem.

The embassy said it will harness the support of the Philippines-US Friendship Caucus for immediate passage of the two House bills. It will also work with the American Hospital Association, a network of 5,000 hospitals and health care systems, and other concerned parties who have a vital need for reliable access to nursing services.

California Congressman Tom Lantos’ bill seeks to allow the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) to reassign unused visas allotted to other countries to qualified nurses from the Philippines, India and China instead.

Another bill, filed by Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson, seeks to create a special nurses’ visa, similar to the old H1A used to address the nursing shortage of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

To date, some 130,000 employment-based immigrant visas or EB3 for countries other than the Philippines, China and India remain unused, the embassy said in a press statement.

The CIS has put on hold employment-based visas for workers from the three countries in order to clear its backlog, saying it will no longer issue these visas for workers from countries that have exceeded their annual quota for green cards until new visas become available.

Only visa and status-adjustment applications filed before Jan. 1, 2002 will be processed.

"Due to the current shortage of nurses in California and in states across the nation, many of our hospitals are dependent on filling their ranks with new workers from abroad," Lantos said, explaining why he introduced his bill last month.

The US Department of Health and Human Services reported there are at present 130,000 vacancies for registered nurses all over the US. The need is projected to grow to 275,000 by 2010 and to more than 800,000 by 2020.

At least 30 states are reportedly experiencing a shortage of nurses and this may increase to 45 states by 2012.

Lantos said it is "ridiculous" that amid a nursing shortage, the US is turning away large numbers of registered nurses from abroad due to bureaucratic constraints.

"I am outraged that the efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to clear out a backlog of pending immigration cases will be keeping away much-needed nurses coming from the Philippines and other countries," he said.

Lantos pointed out that "this is a ridiculous situation, given the shortage of nurses faced by hospitals in California and nationwide."

He described his bill, entitled the Health Improvement and Professionals Act of 2005," as a "common-sense, short-term solution while still letting federal officials do the necessary and important work of processing the mounting logjam in visa applications."

Lantos clarified that his bill "does not increase the number of workers allowed into our country" but instead "ensures that we are putting to full use the number of workers’ visas currently allowed by law in order to fulfill a crucial and exponentially increasing healthcare worker shortage."