EDITORIAL - Nurses’ exodus

Even before the COVID pandemic, the global demand for nurses had already been high. Advanced economies could dangle high salaries and other attractive incentives to recruit nurses from other countries. Global health experts warned that lower-income states could not match such remunerations and benefits, and were hard-pressed to address the loss of their health professionals.

As early as 2010, member states of the World Health Organization, worried about this trend, had adopted a Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Among other things, the code urged wealthy countries to recruit health professionals through bilateral agreements, in consultation with the health department in the workers’ country of origin.

The destination country was also encouraged to provide some form of support for public healthcare programs in the source country, and to encourage foreign health professionals to return to their home country after a certain period, and after acquiring certain skills. The question has always been whether migrant health professionals wanted to return home.

The nursing shortage burdened the Philippines at the height of the COVID pandemic, when even the top hospitals that could afford high salaries reported losing a substantial number of their nursing staff. Amid the pandemic, wealthy countries moved aggressively to recruit health professionals from overseas. Canada, for example, eased language requirements for residency. Germany allowed foreign-trained doctors to move directly into assistant physician positions. Even Finland began recruiting health workers from overseas.

The problem requires less affluent and developing economies to innovate and exert more effort to hang on to their health professionals particularly nurses. Last Wednesday, President Marcos ordered the Commission on Higher Education to address the country’s loss of nurses to states that offer better remuneration. He noted that Filipino nurses are known for the quality of their service. He said that in his meetings with leaders of other countries, they always asked him for nursing staff from the Philippines.

CHED officials have said that so far, several programs are already in place to address the problem. Among these are shorter courses for various nursing competencies, the “re-tooling” of those who fail the nursing board, and a “return service” program that offers nursing scholarships in exchange for a certain mandatory period of working in the Philippines. A “Nurse para sa Bayan” will be similar to the “Doktor para sa Bayan” scheme under Republic Act 11509.

President Marcos gave an accurate assessment: “Our nurses are the best; the whole world is our rival here.” One thing certain is that the country cannot afford to be complacent and ignore the problem.