With the rising number of nurses in the country, even the Department of Health Secretary Enrique Ona has only one thing to say: Avoid taking up Nursing. While it may be true that we have a booming number of jobless tummy scratching nursing graduates and mushrooming profit-oriented nursing schools, I think there are more ways to solve these problems other than dissuading the youth from getting into the nursing profession. What happens to those whose lifelong dream is to become a nurse and serve humanity? Eeek.
The dilemma lies not on the number of graduates but on the ineffective distribution and plain finicky (in Tagalog, kaartehan) of the graduate nurses. According to Ona as cited in Inquirer.net, there are almost 200,000 unemployed and underemployed nurses in the country. But why the heck are we still having high infant morality rates, low level of health awareness, rising incidences of communicable diseases, and other poor statistics in the indicators of a healthy nation? Quite ironic, isn’t it?
Well, let me tell you why: NO ONE WANTS TO WORK AS A NURSE IN THE PHILIPPINES. Some of you may disagree on my generalization. If you say yes, go build yourself a monument cast in bronze for you are one of the righteous few. But seriously, it’s kind of true that most of the nurses nowadays only toiled through their undergraduate studies hoping to earn big bucks in the future. Hardly anyone actually thought of working in the sweltering heat of the community setting, visiting houses to give immunizations, gathering townspeople for a health education seminar, and work in the health centers. They have set their minds to fly to foreign land as soon as opportunity sets in. They want to work in the cool setting of the private hospitals equipped with the latest equipment to ease their jobs, or better yet, do their jobs. They want money and they want it fast.
We have a lot of nurses in the Philippines, but the a more interesting perspective is on on how many are actually fulfilling their jobs as nurses? Gloc 9 might have gotten it right in his latest song where he goes like, “Napakaraming nars dito sa atin, ngunit bakit tila walang natira”. Maybe he wasn’t only referring to the nurses who have gone abroad, but also maybe those who aren’t doing what they are supposed to do. What happened on the idea that nursing is a vocation?
Another interesting point of discussion is that the government said that it would give stricter review of the quality of instruction of nursing schools. They even released a list of schools with poor board exam performance last 2009, threatening them to improve their passing rates or else get closed down. But really, do we hear any nursing school closed? No, we don’t.
It's true, even here. Though it may be true that the best nurses we have are Pinoy-it just comes to a point where it's too much.
ReplyDeleteOne of my Tita's a director from one of the local hospitals here and it goes to a point where she just throws out resumes and applications from Filipinos 'cause all the other races are thinking they only hire Filipinos because she's one too..
And with people thinking you'd be bloody rich once you work overseas, it's not true- nor is money easy picking. cost of living pretty much puts you to a point where it's all the same as to living back there (besides the obvious difference like gov. Benefits, environment etc.)
I just wish people would realize that them people who send back money home sacrifices a lot just so they could send what could've been used for themselves.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Its not that RN's here don't want to work as nurse but the sad truth is that there is no nursing job in the country.
ReplyDeleteI am currently working as a company nurse but sad to say most of my batch mates and close friends has no jobs related to our course since most hospitals offers VOLUNTEER thing but you need to pay first to do the volunteer deed.
Hope all hospitals come to realize that volunteering is good since its a charity but if we will be paying just to be a volunteer its best not to practice nursing. Our parents and families did not pay for our tuition and review classes just to do the volunteer thing wit h a catch.