Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Does the Philippines have a civil liberties union that you can go to in order to file a complaint or law suit? You should not be passing medications and doing the work of a nurse unless you have a paid contract to do so. Anything else could be construed as forced labor.

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Originally Posted by Alexk49

First of all best of luck in your interview. I hope you get the position you want.

I find it very confusing to figure out what does a student nurse do in the Philippines. First of all you have an inexperienced instructor. In the US the students are working on the instructor's license not the the staff's license.

Second as a student you are responsible for everything. All the medications and treatments. The only exception is hanging blood which needs to be done by staff. So when I am on a floor with 8 students and we are caring for 10 patients, that is 10 patients taken off the staff's assignment.

Third, what you describe as a student is nurse's aide work and where is the instructor. I ask my students to ask me questions since I am the one who is getting paid to supervise the students.

Thanks for the information.

thank you alexk49... i also do hope to pass the interview. first of all, that's a tertiary hospital that i'm applying to, so i get to learn and do nursing in probably the most ideal way. unlike the hospital where i am volunteering which has limited resources. but i don't think they'll place me in my area of choice (OR) since they asked me for several times if i want to work in the ICU instead of the OR. anyway, wherever they place me, i'm willing to learn.

what i shared re: the student nurses is what i have seen in the hospital where i am volunteering. this may apply to most(?) nursing schools here, but not all. there are still nursing schools here that really train their students well so that their students will become well equipped when they become RNs. when i was a nursing student, we are under our clinical instructor and the clinical instructor's license is the one at stake, not the staff nurse's license. we are lucky that we have very good and experienced clinical instructors. some of them were nurses in the US (before they came back) and have taught us how to provide safe and quality patient care according to joint comm and the npsg (which is really really good!!! i hope to work in a hospital that practices it in the future!!!) anyway, we are also responsible for everything... IVFs, treatments, medications except IV medications (it's against our nursing law that nursing students give IV medications, although some instructors allow their students to, which i think is dangerous. for instance, a baby died because a student nurse gave kcl via ivp and not incorporated). anyway, i even got to do peritoneal dialysis and catherterization and post mortem care, etc. i don't really know why the students in the hospital where i volunteer does very limited duties and why our licenses are the ones at stake. the good thing though of them having limited duties is that i don't risk my license from being revoked because of a mistake of a student nurse. hehe

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Originally Posted by captncourageous98

Does the Philippines have a civil liberties union that you can go to in order to file a complaint or law suit? You should not be passing medications and doing the work of a nurse unless you have a paid contract to do so. Anything else could be construed as forced labor.

the philippine nurses association is against volunteerism or hospitals getting volunteer nurses to suffice their being understaffed. i think we volunteers (or some of us) are aware that the system of those hospitals are unfair. imagine us working 8hr shifts (and sometimes double shift) and we are not being paid for it. the hospitals are only the ones who are benefiting from this arrangement; they get to have more people to work for them without spending a single peso. although some volunteers are a little lucky that they receive allowances. but in some hospitals, the volunteers pay the hospital for them to be able to volunteer!!! imagine that!!! and some volunteers just end up doing the work of nurse aides! it's a harsh reality for us nurses out here. there are a lot of registered nurses (even those from batch 2006) that are not being accepted as staff nurses in hospitals and we will still have a new batch of registered nurses probably by february! now that's a lot of unemployed nurses! true, there is a shortage of nurses here in the philippines, but hospitals don't want to hire more nurses because it will cost them more. instead, they get volunteers. and since we have a lot of nurses without anywhere to go, they accept being a volunteer nurse. i, for instance, entered into volunteer nursing because i felt the need to practice nursing again... i got scared that i might wake up one day and realize that i no longer know how to insert a catheter or do suctioning. but of course, i'm not going to allow myself to end up as a volunteer forever. i am also looking for ways and working hard to get myself a job as an employed staff nurse.

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Good luck finding a job in the OR. It is a position in demand in the USA. Sounds like you have the right attitude and that you had good clinical instructors who held you to high standards.

Let us know how your interview went.

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Originally Posted by Alexk49

Good luck finding a job in the OR. It is a position in demand in the USA. Sounds like you have the right attitude and that you had good clinical instructors who held you to high standards.

Let us know how your interview went.

hi alexk49! i passed the interview!!!^_^ i'm also done with my physical exam, etc. i'm just waiting for their call on when i'll be deployed. i still don't know where i'll be placed. we were told we'd find out after the orientation.

i haven't informed yet the hospital where i'm volunteering because i don't have an exact date yet on when i'd start working... i don't even know if i'd be deployed this feb or march that's why i don't want to "resign" yet. but i think i have to inform them at least one week in advance so they could find a replacement for me. i don't want my colleagues to suffer and do straight shifts because i left in such short notice.

btw, apparently, we were given an "allowance" for our volunteer work after our first 2 weeks! it was so unexpected. in some way, i also find it sad to leave my colleagues because they are really nice and we are such a great team! i'm also anxious/excited to work in this next hospital because it is so big compared to the hospital where i volunteer... it's also a new environment, new bosses, new kinds of patients, new colleagues, new everything! i'm nervous!^_^'

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Wonderful news and thanks for sharing. Glad to hear you are getting some recognition for your time as a volunteer. You will do great, you have a great attitude and will succeed in whatever you do.

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Originally Posted by suzanne4

Volunteer work in the Philippines does not count as work experience in other countries as one is not fully responsible for the patient. You are not responsible 100% for the care of the patient and in the majority of the facilities you also do not administer medications as well.

The sad thing is, Suzanne, that here in the Philippines a volunteer nurse (in most cases) has the same responsibilities as a paid nurse.

Until the government here really eliminates corruption and passes some laws which help healthcare rise to the level of other semi-industrialized nations it'll always be a problem with exploitation of labor.

Regardless of this toxic environment, Pinoy nurses continue to provide massive levels of compassionate care and treat each patient to the best of his or her own abilities.

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

I just passed the NLE. So as I am reading through this thread what I am getting is -- Volunteering is NOT an experience but is an "unwritten" prerequisite to have an experience. Is there any other way to not get into this sick process?

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

Originally Posted by chromoflage

I just passed the NLE. So as I am reading through this thread what I am getting is -- Volunteering is NOT an experience but is an "unwritten" prerequisite to have an experience. Is there any other way to not get into this sick process?

1) Practice your interview skills. I've interviewed dozens of people for various job positions here in the Philippines and I can tell you that there is obviously no instruction going on at public school or college level to teach people the right ways to interview. Interviewees are nervous, they stammer, use verbal crutches (um, uh, ano, etc..) and are completely incapable (it seems) of forming a coherent answer to simple questions such as "Can you give me an example of how you solved a problem with your past job?" or even "What would you like to be doing in five years?"

I only do level 1 interviews for a few jobs here in Manila, not the level 2 or final interviews. I am not in charge of hiring anyone so please, no PMs.

2) Work in Saudi or Dubai first but make sure you have a legitimate contract for a nurse position, make sure everything is spelled out clearly. If your family can support you in the financial obligations then go for Australia or New Zealand since they are actually better for Filipinos than the USA in many ways.

3) Be firm with hospitals that you are a high quality nurse and they should respect you as such and honor a paid position. Don't compromise on yourself or your standards.

4) Band together with fellow nurses. If all nurses in the Philippines stop volunteering for hospitals then hospitals will stop the practice of exploiting labor, they only do it because nurses support it. Hospitals can afford to hire, they just don't because there are so many nurses that they can exploit you all. Hopefully this issue will be brought up in the upcoming conference. I've asked someone to address it, we'll see how she does

Re: Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

I know an agency that are accepting volunteer nurse as an experience for New Zealand. A year of volunteering is enough and of course an ielts passer with a grade of 7 in all subtests.