CONGRESSWMAN Kristine Alexie B. Tutor challenged the Department of Health (DOH) to hire more licensed Filipino nurses who are not employed yet to answer the shortage of nurses in hospitals and other health care centers in the country.
Tutor, chairperson ng House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation, said that DOH should fill more those vacant positions of nursing health employment than the plan of giving temporary license to flunkers in board exams who got only score of 70% as against the proposal of Health Sec. Ted Herbosa.
There are about 165,000 left for the United States since the 1960s.
The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) said that there about 915,000 plus licensed nurses and a third of these (316,405) left the country to overseas for a greener pasture.
One in every 20 nurses working in the U. S. is a Filipino, another report said.
This resulted to over 106,000 nurses shortage in the country who have no work or work elsewhere, like in call centers and other jobs to stay afloat, the report said.
Another irritant factor why Filipino nurses left the country is that the pay is very low and Philippines is one of the countries to offer the lowest salaries to nurses.
Manila Standard Today reported that based on the Filipino Nurses United, “the main reason for the exodus of our nurses is that the government has not been giving us reason+s to stay. “Our nurses are leaving in droves, they said, because of several factors, such as high nurse-to-patient ratio, low wages, and the slow response by government to health-care workers’ concerns.”
Tutor said that the hiring of flunkers who got only 70% of the board exams but be given temporary license has no basis in law, Republic Act 9173 or the Philippine Nursing Act or Republic Act 8981 o PRC Modernization Act of 2002.
The congresswoman in third district of Bohol urged the DOH to or PRC to conduct a special exam of the subjects the flunkers who got below 60% of their board exams as provided under section 15 of RA 9173.
This way, the lady solon is certain that there would a lot of nurses to be hired to fill the gap or shortage in hospitals.
Another suggestion also advanced by Tutor is through amendments of the law to devise a category for nurse practitioner and nursing assistant that may be provided the opportunity to work in medical institutions.
Tutor also insinuated that if the DOH and PRC feel the “urgent crisis mode” for the shortage of nurses, the agencies concerned should request President Bongbong Marcos to certify as urgent the proposed amendatory bill so that Congress could act on it. (rvo)
