Editorial - Not enough

Here’s a piece of good news to all nurses in the country, especially those working in state hospitals.

A partylist congressman is pushing for a move to increase the salaries of government nurses. Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño had filed House Bill 5230, which seeks to increase the salaries of nurses to ensure new graduates will stay in state hospitals.

The “Government Nurses’ Salary Upgrading Act of 2011” aims to provide state nurses a salary of P24,887, which is equal to Salary Grade 15 in government service.  Currently receiving P15,649, government nurses are still under Salary Grade 11 although there is already a law hiking their take-home pay.

Conforming to the Philippine Nursing Act, Casiño’s bill aims to ensure an increase in the salary of government nurses to make it at par with workers in business process outsourcing.

Every year, the country is producing tens of thousands of new nurses but, sadly, state hospitals are still lacking personnel. Government hospitals are not attracting new graduates for long-term employment because of a meager salary, which offers no hope for them to stay.

 Since the government cannot guarantee a better life, new recruits would only work for experience. They would only spend a couple of years in order for them to qualify to seek greener pasture overseas. 

 The problem lies in the fact that working with the government is not really an option for the new nursing graduates, whose primary ambition is to land employment abroad.  

With the hundreds of thousands of pesos that their parents spent for their studies, it’s no wonder these new nurses are shifting away from their profession, venturing into more lucrative jobs such as those in call centers.

Casiño’s move is just another undertaking hiking the salaries of nurses working in the country. There’s already the Philippine Nursing Act, which seeks to upgrade the state of the nursing profession. 

The problem, however, is that these remedies are not enough to stop the massive exodus of our nurses abroad.