FIGURES from the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing Inc. showed a total of 7,791 Filipino nurses hoping to practice their profession in America took the US licensure examination for the first time in 2017. The numbers were up 23 percent from the 6,322 Philippine-educated nurses that took America’s eligibility test, or the NCLEX, for the first time in 2016.
Many Filipino nurses still prefer the US because, apart from the superior hourly pay, they also find it easier to work and live there, considering our cultural affinity with America. The median pay of registered nurses in America was $70,000 per annum, or $33.65 per hour in 2017, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Aside from England, Canada and European counties, Japan has also opened a new market for our nurses. Good salaries and fringe benefits, higher by many digits from what they get from our local hospitals and rural health units, are magnets to both old ones and fresh graduates. This is understandable. The lives of many of our overseas contract workers and their families have improved. Also, their remittances buoy our economy.
However, the departure of our nurses – and other health professionals such as doctors, medical technologists, pharmacists, physical therapists, etc. – to other rich nations comes with a price, especially on our public health system. Who will be left to deliver basic health services if this “brain drain” continues? The quality of service may also be adversely affected.
How to encourage our medical professionals to stay put and serve Filipinos is something that the government must figure out quickly. One solution is to increase their salaries and fringe benefits – reasonable enough to maintain the dignity of their profession. The government can well afford this if only graft and corruption is minimized.
