[pickledpepperRN]

Korea to Send 10,000 Nurses to U.S.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...604140013.html

… After taking free English classes for three months at the HRD Korea, the nurses will begin their work earning around $25 (around W24,000) per hour in some 36 hospitals in the state of New York….
-------------
South Korea plans to export 10,000 nurses to U.S.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SEO335890.htm

[suzanne4]

They still need to pass the series of English exams and the NCLEX-RN exam. Hope that their agency lives up to what it is saying that it is offering. 3 months of English classes will not get anyone thru either of the exams.

But be aware that the current starting salary in NYC is around $65,000 per year.

[PeachPie]

Sounds good. The only thinng I'm worried about is the language barrier.

[HARRN2b]

Are you not concerned that this is just a method of "outsourcing". It is not outsourcing per se but rather "insourcing". A better method would be, imo, to import nurses to teach US students who are trying to get into US nursing schools. If this "insourcing" continues for the long term, wages will be significantly lowered. I have seen this in other industries.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Like spitting on a wildfire to put out the flames. We need more nurses, clearly. I worry about places like Korea and the Philippines, however-----what is this doing to THEM and their need for nurses?

[SFCardiacRN]

10K nurses will hardly make a dent. Nationwide, we are 100K short in LTC alone. I too worry about the drain of RN's from other countries but am starting to hear that some countries (like the PI) have an overabundance of RN's. It is a shortage of hospitals that is hurting them.

[suzanne4]

The Philippines in the past always trained many more nurses than they needed with the plan in place that they would go to work overseas and send money home. But now, many doctors and dentists are switching to nursing and leaving, so they are getting hit in the areas that theynever considered.

It doesn't matter how many nurses that come over, or want to come over. They must first pass the English exams, as well as the NCLEX-RN exams. And there will be those that can ace the exams, andf those that can never get thru the English. They must have the English to get a Visa Screen Certificate, so nothing is going to be instantaneous.

[CoolhandHutch]

Shame on HRS Global and New York’s St. John's Riverside Hospital for thinking this is a good idea. Cheap labor? pa-shaw. Spend the money on folks in NY that want to go to nursing school. I can't count the ways I am against this.

[mercyteapot]

I was thinking that $25 an hour doesn't sound like much of a starting rate, even in rural areas. Isn't the cost of living quite high in all of NY state?

[greentea]

Blueyes- You know, I was thinking the same thing too. Don't they need their nurses too?
Also, $25/hr is the starting rate in in the Philly area for RNs and GNs, but since this hospital is in New York City (Yonkers), I'm not sure that's quite enough. I'm pretty sure the starting rate for RNs is usually a bit higher there because of the cost of living. I don't think this is a great solution. It's really just an easy fix band-aid, and I agree that a contract like this in addition to whatever money is being spent on the part of the hospital would have been much better spent giving scholarships to nursing students who want to work there or better yet scholarships to nurses who want to become nursing school professors. But hey now that they're already coming, I'm just hoping that they get a fair wage. I wish hospitals would see their nursing shortage problems as more than a supply and demand issue, because nursing schools and other countries for that matter aren't factories and as long as the same problems are there that are driving nurses out of a particular hospital, a quick fix will never be the answer.