Quezon City Rep. Marvin Rillo said Sunday a record-high of 36,410 Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates from the Philippines spent an aggregate of P405-million to take a licensure examination in the United States for the first time in 2023.
In a statement, Rillo said this is nearly double the 18,617 Philippine-educated nurses who took the US licensure test in 2022, excluding repeaters.
The vice chairperson of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education indicated he is bothered by this development, considering its potential impact in the local healthcare sector.
Rillo, therefore, urged Congress to take strong actions that would help retain Filipino nurses in the country. He said our healthcare industry is already reeling from a shortage of nursing practitioners due in part to overseas migration.
“We must increase the base pay of our public nurses who are now being ‘pirated’ aggressively by hospitals in America and other countries,” the lawmaker said.
Rillo is advocating for the passage of his bill seeking to increase by 75 percent the starting base pay of public nurses in a bid to dissuade some of them from seeking greener pastures abroad.
Under House Bill No. 5276, the starting pay of nurses employed by the government would be bumped up to P63,997 per month from the current rate of P36,619.
“We have received reports that many local governments in the provinces are unable to upgrade their hospitals simply because they lack nursing service staff,” Rillo said.
“We would urge provincial, city and municipal governments, as well as private corporate foundations to encourage students to take up nursing by offering full scholarships,” he added.
He cited as example the case of the Northern Samar provincial government, which recently passed an ordinance granting scholarships to nursing students to help address the shortage of practitioners.