Dr. Teresita Barcelo, former president of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), expressed concern over the plan of some hospitals to use nursing attendants as “substitutes” for nurses amid the shortages of nurses in the country.
“If there are less trained people without the qualifications that are needed by a registered nurse to give the essential nursing care, then the Filipino public may be shortchanged,” Barcelo said.
Barcelo said that nurses require four years of training to acquire a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, which is the only qualification recognized by the Professional Regulation Commission.
Because of the shortage, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPi) has been forced to hire nursing attendants to perform non-sensitive medical tasks such as taking blood pressure.
Barcelo said this short-term solution could lead to more problems.
The Department of Health (DOH), together with PHAPi, is actively searching for solutions to address the country’s nursing shortage.
Many Filipino nurses have been opting to work abroad due to better pay and benefits.
Nursing advocate Dr. Carl Balita also raised alarm bells on the current Philippine nursing crisis, urging the quick passage of the proposed new comprehensive nursing law and implementing urgent reforms to alleviate conditions of nurses in their talk at Pandesal Forum of Kamuning Bakery Cafe in Quezon City.
Barcelo decried as “unethical recruitment and unbridled poaching of nurses and even nursing students with even offers of scholarships and migration”.
Barcelo lamented that a previously passed New Comprehensive Nursing Law authored by then Senator Antonio Trillanes and Congressman Rufus Rodriguez was vetoed in June 2016 by then outgoing President Noynoy Aquino, due to lobbying by the bill’s opponents. Barcelo and Balita said they are hopeful that a new proposed “New Comprehensive Nursing Law” filed by Senator Francis Tolentino, Senator Pia Cayetano, Senator Bong Go, Senator Risa Hontiveros, Senator Sonny Angara, Senator Bong Revilla and Congressman Rufus Rodriguez
Balita and Barcelo called for improving benefits (government hospitals often treat nurses as contractuals or job orders only), recognition and better working conditions (avoid one or two nurses serving an entire ward with 60 patients, since ideal ratio is one nurse to 12 patients) to encourage Filipino nurses not to leave the country en masse. They both warned that migration or working overseas of nurses also pose problems, such as high living costs abroad, some nurses overworking at sometimes two jobs or too much overtime due to need to remit money to families in the Philippines and various social costs of working abroad.
Balita and Barcelo described the worsening of crisis of impending shortage of licensed and experienced nurses in the Philippines, the “unethical recruitment and poaching of Filipino nurses and even nursing students by developed countries which are against the policies of World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Council of Nurses (ICN)”, dangers of some proposals for stop-gap measures to deploy TESDA two-year-trained nursing personnal in place of the regular four-year B.S. Nursing graduates which they warned could lead to healthcare risks. Both Barcelo and Balita proposed various reforms to improve retention of nurses in the Philippines instead of past efforts to focus on increasing supply of nurses.
Dr. Barcelo quoted Department of Health (DOH) statistics on the numbers of registered nurses in the Philippines: total of 700,000 registered nurses of which 172,000 are serving in private and government health facilities; 316,000 have already migrated or are working abroad. Dr. Barcelo said the balance of 212,000 registered nurses are probably working in call centers due to higher salaries, or working in spas or other non-healthcare professions.
