Nurses as modern-day slaves

THE Philippine Regulations Commission announced last week that 22,760 nurses passed the Nurse Licensure Examinations (NLE) given last December 2011.

That’s thousands of new nurses added to the 297,809 unemployed ones as of September 2011. With the huge surplus of nurses fighting for limited employment opportunities, both local and foreign, it’s not surprising that many have ended up taking ordinary jobs ranging from call center agents to sales executives. For those who persist in pursuing a career in nursing, many of them have fallen prey to exploitation in their own country.

One rampant and common form of exploitation is the practice of some private and public hospitals of hiring “nurse volunteers for a fee”. Instead of being hired and paid as a regular employee, “nurse volunteers for a fee” are asked to pay large sums of money for the privilege of obtaining actual and hands-on nursing experience. The reward? Aside from gaining practical knowledge in a real-life setting, they are able to secure that valuable piece of paper called a “certificate of employment” attesting to their work experience, a usual requirement of prospective foreign employers.

Some nurse-volunteers I’ve talked to say the hospitals charge them fees based on the months they stay in the hospital. And to think that these nurse-volunteers are doing the job of a regular nurse eight hours a day! Many hospitals have concealed this “nurse volunteers for a fee” scheme in the guise of “on-the-job-training.”

True, many of these nurse volunteers have willingly become “nurse volunteers for a fee.” But with the dearth of local employment opportunities and with qualifications imposed by most foreign employers that applicants must have a certain amount of experience, can you blame these nurse-volunteers for biting the bullet?

For these unscrupulous hospitals, accepting “nurse volunteers for a fee” is a very profitable proposition indeed. Imagine, they not only have more nurses, they don’t even have to pay them. Worse, they even make a profit out of it! In the old days, people used to call this “lagareng hapon”—with apologies to the Japanese—which may be roughly translated as earning both ways. And that’s in addition to the hospitals’ usual income from their patients and facilities.

Is this the way we should to treat our health professionals? These nurse-volunteers are, after all, registered nurses. They’ve taken and passed a four-year bachelor of science in nursing course and have undergone clinical practicum in different specialty areas. And they’ve passed the nursing board exams. That’s no small feat. I’m sure a lot of parents gave their blood, sweat and tears to put their children through nursing school for a chance at a better future. What a disappointment it must be for them to realize that their children’s nursing license isn’t worth as much as they thought it would be.

And for that, the government, particularly, the Professional Regulatory Board of Nursing (PRBN) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) must both bear responsibility for letting the situation get out of hand. Despite 491 nursing schools churning out more nurses every year, PRBN and CHED had not taken prompt pre-emptive measures to address the growing surplus of nurses. With the current oversupply of nurses, there should be a moratorium on the operation of new nursing schools. Some pundits say PRBN and CHED should immediately close the nursing schools with below 30% passing rate in the NLE. Others propose closing nursing degree programs altogether or at least, imposing a quota on nursing courses.

As for those already licensed nurses, the government should provide them immediate employment opportunities by implementing the DOH Hospital Staffing Standard of 1 nurse for every 12 patients in regular hospitals or 1 nurse for every 20,000 people in community health centers. Better yet, why doesn’t government create regular employment positions for nurses in rural areas where the nearest thing to a health service practitioner is the neighborhood “albularyo”? The government can also provide subsidized courses in public educational institutions so that unemployed nurses can shift to other jobs or careers in the healthcare or medical field where there is a growing demand in foreign market, such as pharmacists, medical assistants, physician assistants, cardiovascular technologists, respiratory therapists, etc.

Although the exploitation of nurse-volunteers cannot be called forced labor, the conditions are the same. When they are given no choice but to work for no pay and are at the mercy of their employers —all for that piece of paper certifying to their experience—isn’t that another form of modern-day slavery? –ATTY. DODO DULAY, Manila Times

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