Ethics Code To Protect Foreign Nurses In Usa

[Hoss]

Code Aims to Aid Nurses

Group Says Foreign Hires Need Protection

By Lori Aratani

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, September 16, 2008; Page HE01

A coalition of health-care groups this month unveiled a code of ethics it hopes will protect nurses from other countries from abusive employment practices when they take jobs in the United States.

"It's our feeling that if we're going to recruit foreign-educated nurses, we need to do so responsibly and ethically," said Cheryl Peterson, director of the department of nursing practice and policy for the American Nurses Association, one of the groups that helped write the guidelines. She called the code a first step.

Since the late 1990s, the United States has struggled to recruit enough nurses to serve its rapidly aging population. The Department of Health and Human Services calculates that by 2020 the country will need about 2.9 million nurses, and will only have about 1.8 million -- a 36 percent shortfall. The shortage has prompted many hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities to look overseas for qualified candidates. A 2004 survey found that about 4 percent of all registered nurses in the United States had been educated abroad.

But not all who arrive in this country find what they expect. The coalition that prepared the ethics guidelines says that some are given jobs beneath their skill level -- jobs that American nurses are reluctant to do -- or are not placed in the hospitals or medical facilities they were promised. Others may not be paid fairly compared with their American counterparts.

"We've heard anecdotal stories of nurses who are abused -- there are pay issues, working-condition issues," Peterson said.

CONTINUE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091203001.html?hpid=sec-health