Many hospitals are charging new nurses fees in exchange for work, training and experience, which are required for nursing jobs abroad. This offshoot of the government’s exploitative labor-export policy needs to stop, according to the Gabriela Women’s Party.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Kit, 26, is a licensed nurse but currently unemployed. To her, the recent hearings at the House of Representatives about hospitals collecting fees from new nurses in exchange for letting them earn their first work experience in their hospital only confirmed that what she went through five years ago is still a reality today.
In 2005, Kit had to pay a private hospital in Manila so she could work there as a full-time nurse for two months. A newly licensed nurse at the time, she had to get a record or “experience” of having worked at a hospital before she could be considered for long-term employment in other hospitals here or abroad. She paid P2,000, or about $45, in 2005 for two months of full-time work at the hospital.
On January 25, Gabriela Women’s Party Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmi De Jesus, together with Ang NARS President Leah Paquiz, NARS ng Bayan President Eleanor Nolasco, and Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates President Alvin Dakis, filed a House Resolution urging President Aquino to immediately put to a stop the collection of exploitative training fees from professional nurses under various forms of volunteer training programs. Hospitals earn additional income from this scheme by filling the needed nursing staff at a lesser cost or for free. “This is unpaid labor in the guise of volunteerism,” says Gabriela Rep. De Jesus. (Photos courtesy of Gabriela Women’s Party / bulatlat.com)
“You cannot say no to this ‘regulation’,” Kit, who asked that her real name not be used, told Bulatlat.com. If you refused, you will never get your first record of “training” or experience, she said. Besides, while they were working in the hospital under this arrangement, their hope was to get absorbed later by the same hospital. Others regard the work experience to be earned as supporting material for job applications abroad.
With a sister-in-law still in nursing school today, Kit said that even without the congressional hearings she knows that the practice of charging nurses in return for a chance to work for the first time in a hospital is still prevalent. Only a few hospitals do not charge their nurses with such fees, she said, citing for example the East Avenue Medical Center. “But you can ‘work’ there for only a month”. In Fairview General Hospital, “you can work as nurse without paying the hospital for up to five months.”
Recently, the long-standing issue of Filipino nurses was tackled in the House of Representatives, prompting some hospital executives to dare nurses to name the hospitals involved. Unfortunately, few young nurses readily came out although some have spoken on condition of anonymity.
With 280,000 nurses unemployed today, based on a “conservative estimate” of Leah Samaco-Paquiz of Ang Nars, younger nurses may be fearful of speaking out against their prospective employers.
Still, senior nurses backed by their professional organizations – such as the NARS ng Bayan president Eleanor Nolasco, Ang NARS president Leah Paquiz and Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates President Alvin Dakis – joined the progressive party-list representatives in Congress last week in filing a resolution calling for an end to this practice..... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/01/31/in-philippine-hospitals-a-scam-preys-on-new-nurses/
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