Have you heard of these phrases?

“Wala akong makitang trabaho e.”

“Hay, kahit volunteer puno ang slots hanggang December.”

“Ito nagtratrabaho ako ngayon sa Call Center.”

If you had, then have you realized we have a chronic problem when it comes to the supply of nurses here in the Philippines.

Starting college, we are made to believe that if you take up nursing, graduate, and pass the board exam, everything will be easy. Our parents say, “Nak, pagbutihan mo para makapasok ka ng Amerika.”. Our teachers say “Malaki ang sweldo ng mga nurses abroad, kaya pagbutihan ninyo.”. We always thought that everything will be like walking in the red carpet. And it seems that the only red carpet that I walked through is the one that we used in our graduation in PICC.

So we studied our asses off, we graduated, took the freaking board which caused palpitations whenever we hear “Lalabas na ang result next week.”, and then passed it. Now, they say everything will be easy, “Kuha ka trabaho.”. Facing now with what is happening, it feels like being slapped by a trout.

I don’t like to dash your hope in becoming a nurse, far from it. I don’t want to rain on the parade of the 27,000 plus newly registered nurses. No. What I’m trying to say is, “It’s the law of supply and demand, stupid.”. Now, from the phrases above, have you heard them enough? We have an oversupply of nurses here in the country. Philippine Nurses Association already said that there is a decrease demand in North America and United Kingdom. We are also confronted by the data that most newly registered nurses are underemployed, if not, unemployed. Now, isn’t it the time that we reign on the production of nurses? I will bet my gonads on it, if the hospitals will announce that they will decrease or stop giving salaries on nurses, they will still have a bountiful of supply of nurses who are willing to just get the experience and don’t care about the salary. Anyway, it’s not about the money if you are a nurse here in the Philippines. But it’s about money when it comes to establishments such as schools and hospitals. Nursing has been the money making course for them. With parents willing to sacrifice everything just to make his son or daughter a nurse. They will give hundreds of thousands of pesos, even millions, to fulfill that dream. Hospitals, in an utmost disregard of the result of the Nursing board exam, will give you another exam (with a fee) for you to be even entertained in their hospital. Training fees, as we call them, sprout from Private and Public health institutions bring cashflow to the groups behind them. Imagine, these 27,000 nurses will undergo a training on BLS for 1,000 pesos(we know it’s much higher than that). 27,000 x 1,000 = 27,000,000. Twenty seven million pesos. Instant kwarta padala. See? And how many nurses want to undergo such trainings to be highly specialized and hopefully be employed? With the backlog that we are experiencing, it is hundreds of thousands of nurses, wow.

The end result? Still, no work for these highly trained nurses as there are no available slots in the hospital. Nurses suffering. Hospitals and schools, even Review Centers, smiling. You are the cash cow at the end of the spectrum. Heck, you thought you were just a spectator not knowing that YOU are part of the game.

Even with this article circulated and published, parents, students, and these institutions will just turn their blind eye. Anyway, it’s hope. However, for me it is called Nursing Addiction syndrome.

PS: If they keep on giving examinations to test your nursing knowledge after you passed the board exam, might as well abolish the board exam altogether and prepare for that test instead. It might land you an employment.

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.

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August 12th, 2008 by nurse_corrupted It's not even interesting to know.