CGFNS/ICHP's Official decision on Visa Screening for June 2006 NLE passers

World Philippines

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CGFNS Denies VisaScreen® Certificates for Philippine Nurses Who Passed the Compromised June 2006 Philippine Licensure Examination

PHILADELPHIA, PA — FEBRUARY 14, 2007 — After careful consideration, the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS International) has decided that those Philippine nurses who were sworn in as licensed nurses in the Philippines following their passing the compromised licensure exam of June 2006 are not eligible for a VisaScreen Certificate. CGFNS began investigating this issue soon after the first reports of irregularities were received and sent a fact-finding mission to the Philippines in September 2006. CGFNS has concluded that the licensure process for those who received their license as a result of passing the compromised June 2006 licensure examination raises significant questions about the accurate assessment of the competencies of many of those individuals.

Therefore, CGFNS is unable to certify that the licensure is comparable to a U.S. license. In this instance, applicable U.S. immigration law will not permit CGFNS to issue the VisaScreen Certificate required of internationally educated health care workers to those nurses who obtained Philippine licensure on the basis of passing the June 2006 nursing licensure examination. CGFNS notes, however, that the June 2006 passers are able to overcome this bar and qualify for a VisaScreen Certificate by taking the equivalent of Tests 3 and 5 on a future licensing examination administered by Philippine regulatory authorities and obtaining a passing score.

please verify at:

http://www.cgfns.org/sections/about/news/news/2007/02-14-07_philippines.shtml

For those that want to go to US...we need to take the board or certain parts of the board this June.

Specializes in Med/Surg/Med-Tele/SDU/ED.

what most people don't know is that the us is a melting pot of races.

nursing is not the exclusive domain of filipinos.

there are a lot of nurses from other countries practicing in the us: among them rns from china, taiwan, hong kong, uk, ireland, japan, india (punjabi & hindi), mexico, the fiji islands...and this is just a quick list of 1 hospital in central california.

us hospitals have other sources of rns. they might have thick accents, but they also get the job done.

our trump card is not as powerful as some people think.

we have to take a wider perspective: sacrificing the house in order to kill a rat might make sense if the house is hopelessly infested with bubonic rats and deadly mold...in order to save the community where the house is located.

And there are many others just waiting to be able to work in the US, and they have completed an entire program with no shortcuts in it.

Thanks for posting that.

Puentevella really said those things? Laughed my ass off. Is he Nostradamus now? Hahaha! It sounded ala-Nostradamus, in the tone of doing an ancient curse. My god.

Specializes in Med/Surg/Med-Tele/SDU/ED.

tit for tat: puentevella threatens americans

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/33253/tit-for-tat-puentevella-threatens-americans

in a tone that tends to undermine cgfns, puentevella said the body was just "kulang sa pansin (attention-seeking)," particularly because a new group is coming to the philippines.

"their body language, nahalata ko after four hours, mukang kulang sa pansin itong grupong ito. parang lalo na ngayon may pumapasok na bagong grupo. mayroon nclex. parang nagpaparamdam talaga. parang, you know, we're here. you better take note," puentevella said on the dzbb radio interview.

he was referring to the national council of state boards of nursing (ncsbn) that will administer the nclex starting this year in manila.

. . .

passing nclex is a licensure requirement to practice nursing in the united states, but it is not a substitute for the federal visascreen rule.

. . .

puentevella also raised doubts on the claim of cgfns as a non-profit organization, noting that each nurse entering the united states have to pay $400 to cgfns.

during the interview, puentevella also blamed the arroyo cabinet for bringing up the june 2006 nursing exam controversy at the time the issue was already dying down.

he said students in universities that did not top the exam also made noise about allegations that test morificecripts were leaked to some favored review centers.

. . .

puentevella said cgfns explained to the four-man task force from the philippines that it could not accommodate the appeal against a retake of tests 3 and 5 of the june 2006 exam because it did not want to create a precedent case that other countries might invoke in the future.

the cgfns officials, he said, told them the controversy should have been settled among the stakeholders and should not have reached the us.

years of friendship destroyed by a few minutes of talk.

someone please tell him that cgfns and nclex are two different things.

a nurse needs both of them to be able to work in the us.

But the bigger issue is that they do not realize that CGFNS is under direct contract to the US government and must follow the rules that were set up and are currently in place. They are not permitted to modify them for the Visa Screen Certificate. Only the US government (US State Dept) can make any changes to the requirements and it is not going to happen.

Not after the raids that have been going on in the LA area the past two weeks or so.

These are the kind of people that needs to be ignored and hope they go away when no one notices them anymore. He isn't a nurse for one thing so he doesn't know the procedures and req'ts that foreign nurses have to go through to migrate to the U.S. but on the other hand you can't blame that he doesn't know or pretends he knows because the BON and the PRC Chairperson doesn't know the req'ts and procedures as well. Remember, the Visa Screen Certification not needed by nurses who only plans to work but not migrate ? The US Embassy have to made a public statement just to correct that wrong notion.

In addition, it scares me that they have been making decisions from the beginning base on wrong information and presumptions and up to now I still don't think they get the whole grasp of it because if they do they won't even have to waste Tax-payer's money to go on a round-trip to the US and who knows what kind of accommodations they availed while there.

What good thing I see is that some of the nurses already realize the mistake of these officials and are now concentrating on just preparing for the re-take in June or Dec.

Specializes in NVICU, NSICU.

I'm sorry but, who the #### is Puentebella? Just took the NCLEX:uhoh3: , that's why. What is his authority to say those things? Somebody enlighten me, pls? Thanks!

He is a politician.

Specializes in NVICU, NSICU.
He is a politician.

I should have known!:smackingf

Specializes in Medical-Surgical.

Exactly! It is shame to hear from a person of authority to said something which he is not familiar.

Heck! Most of us here are better informed when it comes to immigrations issues of nurses and here comes this Puentevilla telliong people on national radio of his views that will only confuse a lot of misinformed people.

As I said in my previous posts, they should research before they open their mouths. As a Filipino, I feel ashamed for them going to CGFNS representing the Filipino nurses to show the whole world that they know nothing but I don't know if they feel ashamed of their ignorance.

These are the kind of people that needs to be ignored and hope they go away when no one notices them anymore. He isn't a nurse for one thing so he doesn't know the procedures and req'ts that foreign nurses have to go through to migrate to the U.S. but on the other hand you can't blame that he doesn't know or pretends he knows because the BON and the PRC Chairperson doesn't know the req'ts and procedures as well. Remember, the Visa Screen Certification not needed by nurses who only plans to work but not migrate ? The US Embassy have to made a public statement just to correct that wrong notion.

In addition, it scares me that they have been making decisions from the beginning base on wrong information and presumptions and up to now I still don't think they get the whole grasp of it because if they do they won't even have to waste Tax-payer's money to go on a round-trip to the US and who knows what kind of accommodations they availed while there.

What good thing I see is that some of the nurses already realize the mistake of these officials and are now concentrating on just preparing for the re-take in June or Dec.

Specializes in Medical-Surgical.

what is he going to do? more talk for nothing.....

tit for tat: puentevella threatens americans

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/33253/tit-for-tat-puentevella-threatens-americans

years of friendship destroyed by a few minutes of talk.

someone please tell him that cgfns and nclex are two different things.

a nurse needs both of them to be able to work in the us.

Let's just pray that it's just sour-graping but if he doesn't stop soon the situation may get worse. Yes, it still can. The American Nurses Assoc. just gave their statement as well and they seem to prefer for a total re-take base on their statement and this just came in this week.

I personally don't think ANA would post such statements if the CGFNS' decision posted last Feb 14 wasn't greeted w/ defiance and if a task force forcibly wanted to go to the US for an appeal since they have been quite all along and just gave that statement a few days ago.

If things gets worse and a total re-take is now being considered who so you think suffers? And who are they blaming it on? Are they going to blame it again to Sec. Dante Ang, Brion and even the GMA administration when the whole fault are w/ the PRC, BON and w/ this politician.

Those three are behaving like bad role-models for some nurses as some are still defiant and crying unfairness up to now even after the failed appeal.

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