IF YOU are unaware that there’s a nursing shortage in the country, perhaps you have not been to a hospital recently either as a patient or as a visitor.
There, you would have noticed that, unlike before, there are fewer nurses at their stations, or doing routine tasks in hospital rooms.
The stark reality today is many of our nurses would rather leave the country in droves to seek the proverbial green pastures in whatever corner of the globe would accept them, simply because they cannot keep body and soul together with the meager salaries they get from both public and private medical facilities here.
According to the Department of Health, there are about 124,000 licensed and registered Filipino nurses who are jobless, underemployed or doing non-related work in BPO call centers.
A lawmaker wants the DOH to track these nurses down and try to convince many of them who are unemployed to work in government hospitals to address the worsening nursing shortage in the country.
Health Secretary Ted Herbosa had earlier suggested hiring nursing graduates who failed the board exams amid reports there are an estimated 4,500 nursing vacancies in government hospitals nationwide at present.
The government-accredited national association Filipino Nurses United said a total 29,293 nursing graduates combined passed the last two Nursing Licensure Exams—18,529 in November 2022 and 10,764 in May this year.
It would be interesting to find out how many of them have found jobs here or even abroad, and how many are wasting their expertise on non-nursing work.
One solution to the nursing shortage is the proposal of the Commission on Higher Education to offer free review classes in top universities for nursing graduates to help them pass the board exams and increase the number of registered Filipino nurses in both public and private hospitals.
The agency said private hospitals have committed to pay for the review of their employees who are non-passers.
It appears only about 50 percent of nursing graduates pass the licensure test.
Thus, CHED wants to hold special review classes for those employed in DOH-run and private hospitals as aides or assistants, so they can pass the licensure test.
Another CHED proposal to address the nursing shortage is the lifting of the 10-year moratorium on the creation of new nursing programs.
In fact, 54 universities have applied to open nursing programs.
CHED is also working with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to train health care and health care associates through a certificate or diploma program.
Will all these work and increase the number of our nurses? Maybe.
But will these necessarily keep them working here?
Or would they simply apply for jobs abroad at the first opportunity?
We can’t blame them if they do.