Foreign countries ‘pirating’ Filipino nursing students

MANILA, Philippines — European countries are now “pirating” nursing students from the Philippines to address the huge demand for health care workers.

Vilma Garcia, De La Salle University Medical Center employees’ union president, said the United Kingdom and Germany are actively recruiting and offering “attractive packages” to Filipino nursing students.

“Foreign countries are giving very attractive packages to our 2nd year nursing students so that they can continue their studies in their country and they will provide everything – tuition and lodging,” she said in an interview.

“Then, when they are already practicing, they can bring their family with them. That’s a big offer and we cannot equal that,” Garcia added in Filipino and English.

According to her, since 2022, foreign countries are directly contacting the school administration in the recruitment of nursing students.

Garcia estimated that about a fourth of their nursing students have accepted the offer. “Of course, they’re still young and they also want to experience studying abroad.”

Part of the contract, she said, is that the nursing student will have to work in the host country after graduation.

The school administration, Garcia said, is not stopping the nursing students and letting them decide if they would accept the offer from other countries.

But she expressed fear that the ongoing recruitment of Filipino nursing students will further worsen the prevailing manpower shortage in private hospitals.

At this time, Garcia said De La Salle could not operate fully and can only accommodate 43 percent of the bed capacity due to lack of nurses. With a 250-bed capacity, she said De La Salle is the biggest private hospital in Cavite.

A 250-bed capacity hospital would require 340 nurses to fully operate. However, she said De La Salle only has 100 nurses working at this time.

Garcia noted that many of the nurses have opted to resign because of low salaries and being overworked. Private hospitals could only afford an entry-level salary ranging from P12,500 to P16,000 a month.

Even the employees’ union, she said, has been helping out in the recruitment of new nurses to address the shortage.

“We are already looking to the provinces for new graduates, but we can’t keep up with the competition especially from foreign countries,” Garcia explained.

She said the manpower shortage in De La Salle is not unusual, but a common situation happening in most private hospitals nationwide.

Garcia called on the government to immediately address the problem besetting the country’s health care system.