I just read the statement in blue below on GMA online news. I know from personal experience how hard it is for a qualified nurse to get a job in any of the hospitals in Dumaguete and also how low the salary is so if he does not know this then he is a bit out of touch with the reality of the situation. The United States is causing problems for the Philippines as both countries deal with the spread of COVID-19, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday night. In his weekly address to the country in the middle of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, Duterte indicated that the US was luring Filipino health care workers to deal with their own rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.
The way this works is, nurse recruiters, usually Filipina or Filipina, recruit graduate nurses from the nursing schools in Cebu or Manila. They usually get a few K for each recruit. It is worth it to the hospitals due to their lower salary demand. This is big money to the recruits who often live several to an apartment, sometimes owned by the recruiters. The “US” as a government does not do this per se (as implied); they are not the recruiters but they always have issued visas for such workers quite generously and it has been a way for OFWs to send money home. They have a good reputation for passing the nursing exams when they get to the US and often become citizens who send money back. Now there is a crisis but really, are they opening up travel for Philippine workers to leave the country? I read that they (Philippines) has cracked down on all OFW’s but not sure if there is an exception. In any case, the US has a large worldwide nursing pool to draw on including their own, including English speaking places like India and Scotland. My opinion as a citizen there is, if the Philippines objects to nurses going to the US (and EU and UK), then the US govt should stop the recruiters and stop issuing the visas and source from other countries if-where needed. This will not damage the US health system so badly as long as the hospitals raise the salaries of American nurses who could not afford to live on the 45K per year in places like NC that Philippine staff nurses are paid. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The latest is that OFWs (obviously that includes nurses) will be allowed to go to their foreign countries IF they have an existing job there but no new recruits can go. I saw a figure that said the Philippines has about 250,000 more nurses than it needs. It seems they mass produce them (the education system here seems to want to give out pieces of paper with ribbons attached however useless they prove to be) and many end up with other jobs as they cannot get into nursing. Nurses here seem to do very little skilled work within the hospitals and perhaps they should train a smaller number to far higher standards, allowing them to take over some simple tasks from the doctors (unless that encroaches on the doctor's ability to make money, of course!). But I salute the OFWS generally for all the sh*t many suffer when abroad and in this particular time for allowing themselves to be put into the frontline and without proper protection. They do all of this to help their families - I hope the families at home respect them and not just see them as an ATM. And I hope once this crisis is over the countries who needed them now don't just discard them.
Thanks for the great information. I also have lots of experience with Filipina nurses in the US with my wife. The fact is, they really do lower nursing salaries making it difficult for single/divorced American nurses to survive in the profession. As far as discarding them, the nurses when in the US work under contacts and never seem to have a problem finding a job afterwards. The US cannot discard them for the length of their visas. So the contract length and visa authorizations are well known to them before they leave the Philippines. The US has no process to discard anyone who legal (and they are); hospitals may lay off but there are nurses unions and unemployment but that is not foreseen as a problem. In spite of what many have heard, US hospitals are not overflowing with patients due to the virus. My personal opinion is that nurses salaries should be subject to market forces arising from self-sufficiency of labor in the healthcare field, not skewed by artificially low prices created by H1 visas. Perhaps the State Department will get around to that if/when they implement self sufficiency in pharmaceuticals and PPE. And if hospital bill rise, that is the cost of self-sufficiency (same with pharmaceuticals and PPE). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I was not particularly thinking of the US - but there may be some countries who will use their services now and then show little concern for them later. The UK is pretty good at admitting immigrants and then later treating them very badly ('Windrush Scandal') and throwing out students from poor countries because the college they attended was found lacking in its paperwork. The fault was very often the college but the hardship fell on the students - they were given 40 days to find a new college but as many had no refund from the former one, they did not have money for the new fees. Many returned to poor African and Asian countries with debts which will be a burden to them and their families for many years. The UK government called it a 'Hostile Environment'.
Yes but the discussion revolves around Phils govt saying America being a “problem” due to Filipino nurses going to America. It is not an unresolvable problem for the US if they do not go back and the solution is to keep them here. I do not know about UK but in all cases in the US, the colleges and universities must support the legal stay of students and those that do not would be held in violation of immigration laws and not be allowed any sponsorships in the future. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
