Bringing US nurse licensing to Manila

Wish them luck and whisper a prayer. A delegation of government and nursing leaders flies off today on a make-or-break mission to bring the US nursing licensure exam to Manila. If it succeeds, Filipino nurses seeking jobs in America no longer would have to spend thousands of dollars to take the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) overseas, but can do it in country.

Led by Commission on Filipinos Overseas chairman Dante Ang, Task Force-NCLEX will meet Friday in Chicago with the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). Up for judgment are Philippine ideas to secure the exam and its administrators. Assent by the NCSBN to hold the exam in Manila would benefit 15,000 Filipino nurses who take it each year in order to practice in America.

Task Force-NCLEX is up against tremendous odds. In July 2006 the NCSBN was grilling it about Philippine ability to guard the NCLEX when double whammy struck. Questionnaires of the June local licensing test, a requisite for the NCLEX, had been leaked. To further blacken the Philippine image, there was an initial whitewash, followed by indecision on penalties, and capped by a court order for only a limited test retake.

On Friday Ang will explain government steps to restore the integrity of local licensing, including indictment of the cheats and test automation. He will also update the NCSBN on actions to ensure NCLEX copyright and physical protection, and to amend the nursing school curriculum to suit US standards. Also with Task Force-NCLEX are Dr. Carmencita Abaquin of the Professional Regulatory Commission’s Board of Nursing; Dr. Leah Samaco Paquiz and Ruth Padilla, present and immediate past president of the Philippine Nurses Association; Dr. Carmelita Divinagracia, president of the Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing; Atty. Ireneo Galicia, deputy executive director of the Intellectual Property Office; Atty. Efren Meneses of the NBI anti-fraud and computer crimes division; and Atty. Ariss Santos of the labor department.

Two facts underscore the Philippine bid for the NCLEX to be held in Manila. A good 83 percent of foreign nurses in America are Filipinos. Too, about 60 percent of each year’s first-time NCLEX examinees are Filipinos (the rest are mostly Indians, Koreans, Canadians and Cubans).

In the 1990s about 9,000 Filipinos took the exam each year. The number jumped to more than 15,000 in 2006 — signifying Filipino desire to work in America, which is short of a million nurses at present.

Of the annual first-time NCLEX takers from the Philippines, only half pass. Nursing leaders point to two reasons. One is poor quality of nursing education, as seen in the yearly school output of 80,000 graduates, but with only 32,000 or so passing the local licensing test. Too, Filipino examinees spent thousands of dollars to take the NCLEX overseas — money they could otherwise have used revving up for it.

As a requirement to practice nursing in America, the NCLEX used to be conducted only in the US and its territories. Up to 2003, the nearest to the Philippines was Saipan. In 2002 the NCSBN decided to open the test outside the US, and in 2004 Hong Kong, Seoul and London became pilot sites. Additional test centers were set up in 2006 in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Mexico and Taiwan.

The opening of the NCLEX in nearby Hong Kong and Taiwan was in recognition of Filipino nursing dominance in America. Those in London and Germany were opened to somehow entice other Filipino nurses, whom US hospitals and nursing homes prefer because of their bedside manners.

Twice the Philippines was nixed as a test site, despite endorsements from the US Embassy and the American Chamber of Commerce in Manila. NCSBN officials were unconvinced of their physical security as well as that of the NCLEX. Admittedly hundreds of thousands of Americans live in the Philippines, and US military personnel regularly visit for training. Likewise, the CGFNS qualifying test for potential NCLEX takers has been held in the Philippines for a decade. But the NCSBN needed assurance against copyright infringement and for alignment of the school curriculum with America’s. Thus did President Arroyo form Task Force-NCLEX on July 31, 2006 to get government agencies and nursing leaders into the groove.

About the same time, however, news broke that no less than two members of the PRC Board of Nursing leaked the licensing test questionnaires to certain officers of the PNA and college deans. The PRC at first denied the leak. Only when examinees came forward to confess did it act — and only to re-compute the test scores.

The NBI has since filed criminal charges against the leaky examiners and cohort school owners and PNA officers who operate review centers. The Court of Appeals has ordered a retake for some examinees. The PNA elected new officers. Review centers were put under regulation.

NCSBN officers inspected Manila in Nov. to verify the reforms. They then scheduled Task Force-NCLEX for second round of grilling this week.

Employment and labor leaders believe that if the government must pursue a policy of exporting labor, it might as well deploy skilled workers like nurses, who are graduates of four-year college courses. Of the 32,000 who pass the local licensing test, former senator Ernesto Herrera says, only about 2,000 find good-paying jobs in government and private hospitals. Yet all wish to work abroad, mainly in America. And on the Task Force-NCLEX rests the first step to fulfilling that dream.

* * *

An invention for better health, featured in this column last year, has won big the MIT-PESO Challenge, the Super Bowl of local techies held by the Ayala Foundation. Bonifacio Comandante’s Seafood Viagra — vitamins and minerals force-fed to mollusks for diners to ingest — landed second among 57 innovations that underwent three elimination rounds. Boni’s earlier invention — a natural substance that puts fish to sleep for cheaper and longer transport — won in the 2004 California competition of great business ideas.

* * *

It’s bad enough that school bus owners disobey new security rules, like labeling their vans with the schools they service. It’s worse if, precisely because buses are unmarked, reckless drivers over-speed into subdivisions to imperil joggers, and then over-speed to school to endanger passengers.

The owner of one unmarked blue-gray school van (license plate No. UTH 697) had better comply with the law before scooting around Fairview, Quezon City. The driver who claims to be one Lamberto Wycoco had better learn road courtesy, or else face the wrath of early-morning exercisers.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]