U.S. takes care in recruiting Mexico nurses

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

By Hugh Dellios

Tribune foreign correspondent

August 17, 2003

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0308170248aug17,1,3941261.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

GUANAJUATO, Mexico -- At a time when the issue of cross-border job hunting by Mexicans is hotly debated, students at the University of Guanajuato's nursing school could soon be receiving invitations to work in the United States.

This autumn, the dean of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee's nursing school plans to visit the flower-bedecked, hillside campus here to start an academic exchange program. One goal could be the recruitment of Mexican nurses to help care for the booming but largely underserved Latino community in and around Milwaukee.

The idea has its roots in two years of efforts to promote cultural, educational and business ties between the states of Wisconsin and Guanajuato. The governor of Guanajuato, Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, is married to an Appleton native and most of their 10 children were born in the Dairy State.

But while the need for bilingual nurses grows more acute every day across the U.S., the two schools are moving cautiously. They know that on the U.S. side people do not want to hear about foreigners taking local jobs, while in Mexico, people may be angered that their best nurses are being lured away.

In Guanajuato, officials also are apprehensive after being approached by other recruiters offering lots of money to attract the school's nurses to the U.S., seemingly without the care and preparation that UWM is offering and requiring.

"We need to be careful with this," said Carmen Carrillo, assistant dean of Guanajuato's 250-student nursing school.

"Right now it's very scary," she said. "One guy from Texas, he was looking desperately for nurses. He was offering $10,000 just for each name. We know there is a need for bilingual nurses in the U.S., but with some of this, I'm not sure it's helping the U.S. or helping some [recruiters'] pockets."

Sally Lundeen, the UWM nursing school dean, said she and her staff understand the sensitivities. They have set out only to discuss an exchange program that could help train Mexican nurses at a graduate level, whether they someday could come to the U.S. or not, while giving UWM students the opportunity to study in Mexico.

"This is not about buying Mexican nurses. This is about working toward international cooperation," said Lundeen, whose school has ties with schools in South Korea and Eastern Europe.

Global need

"This should be about meeting the global need for nurses, not just in the U.S. but around the world. We have erred on the side of saying, `If we can't guarantee that Mexico will not be disadvantaged by this, then we will not go to that level of exchange.'"

Nevertheless, Lundeen said the need for Spanish-speaking nurses is far more dire than the general shortage of nurses in the U.S. Across the country, only 2 percent of nurses come from Hispanic communities, while only 12 percent of nurses overall qualify as minorities, she said.

"We have a desperate shortage of people who have language skills or share the same cultural background as those communities," she said.

Discussion of recruiting nurses and teachers to fill shortages has been a central facet of talks between Guanajuato and Wisconsin officials. On visits to the U.S., Romero Hicks has met with university officials in Milwaukee and Madison, and he is set to meet again with state leaders after attending Milwaukee's Fiesta Mexicana this week.

Guanajuato is also the home state of Mexican President Vicente Fox, who briefly studied in Wisconsin as a youth and who visited the state soon after his election in 2000.

The interstate ties also have been promoted by a Guanajuato-born UWM professor, Javier Tapia, who began studying Mexican immigration to Milwaukee last year. What he found was that the number of Mexicans in Milwaukee is probably underestimated and that this contributes to a shortage of services for them.

The U.S. Census said the Hispanic population in Milwaukee more than doubled from 32,000 in 1990 to 72,000 in 2000, a leap similar in magnitude to what occurred in Chicago. Milwaukee's overall population is about 597,000.

Tapia and others say that not only is there a shortage of nurses and teachers from the Hispanic community but that there also are few young Hispanics entering those professions. They feel that bringing in Mexicans or other Latinos could not only help the community prosper and contribute in its new home but provide some role models too.

Similar to push for teachers

Schools and hospitals across the U.S. face similar shortages, and there are efforts to recruit nurses and teachers from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Spain and the Philippines. Chicago hires some teachers from Mexico each year, while some hospitals have recruited nurses from Puerto Rico and Mexico, said Illinois officials.

"What's different about Wisconsin is that we are trying to put together a well-thought-out plan, not just a piece here and a piece there," Tapia said. "These foreigners are not taking the place of residents. They are just coming to sectors where a shortage has already been identified."

As part of the exchange, the Milwaukee Public Schools attempted to fill seven vacancies for bilingual teachers this year with candidates from Guanajuato. But school officials discovered some of the difficulties when they could not reach some candidates by telephone and others did not speak English well enough.

They ended up hiring one Mexican teacher from the state of Tamaulipas and another instructor from Colombia. The other positions were filled with bilingual U.S. citizens who took a special teaching certification course or with interns.

"It's a start," said Joseph Chiusolo, a staffing specialist with the school system. "Next year we'll try another round."

The school system also had to adjust because of new immigration limits. It now is securing a less costly cultural-exchange permit from the U.S. State Department, while state regulators certify that the teachers have the necessary skills.

The skills and language requirements for nurses would be stricter, given the sickness and health issues involved. The candidates would have to be highly proficient in English, while passing the national and state licensing exams. Professional and cultural differences also would have to be bridged.

"It's not easy for a Mexican nurse to work in the U.S. There, they have more freedom. They have more decisions to make," said Carrillo, who studied nursing at Seattle Community College. "It takes time to prepare. We can't just say, `Let's go!'"

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

[oramar]

There must be a million US citizens who happen to be fluent in English and Spanish. Is anyone attempting to recruit them into the medical profession? A lot of them come from poor working families who just don't have the money for schooling. It can't be possible that Wisconsin is the only place trying to do something about the dearth of Spanish npeaking nurses as well as other healthcare workers.