Nurses may be trained abroad to get jobs

MANILA, Philippines – To help ease the surplus of Filipino nurses, recruiters have expressed willingness to send them to their client-hospitals abroad for “apprentice training” to enhance their employment opportunities.

But they said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration should first forge a bilateral agreement with host-countries.

“This agreement is very crucial for the protection of our nurses. It will provide a clear-cut policy on how this should be done. We want everything to be legalized,” said recruitment consultant Manny Geslani.

He said many Filipino nurses are highly qualified, except for not having a two-year experience in 250-bed hospitals required by some foreign employers.

Jackson Gan, vice president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, said his group intends to work for a system in which the foreign hospitals will give these nurses allowance for board and lodging and shoulder the cost of deployment.

The training program, he added, is expected to pave the way for eventual employment of the nurses.

Gan said foreign employers are turning many nurses away because they did not undergo training in 250-bed hospitals lacking in the Philippines.

He said recruiters could help nurses undergo training in hospitals in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Middle East, Singapore, Belgium, Finland and Norway.

He said hospitals are willing to accept foreign nurses to fill the gap in their manpower.

Gan said such a scheme could become a “stop-gap” measure until the country resolves its oversupply of nursing professionals. – Sheila Crisostomo