Filipino and other Asian nurses in UK

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American nurses are trying to speak up concerns on prohibiting foreign recruits so as to strengthen their bargaining power and hear their voices of their grievance regarding low wages,long hours,hard work etc.. in America.What about opinions from British nurses of the same issue? Are foreign nurses a big blockage to our rights and professional demands? You may share your honest thoughts.:p

I'll start it:

Why do they all sit at the nurses station talking filipino for. fair enough if they were working in the phillipines, but it happens where I work in London and REALLY irritaes me. How about doing some work instead of a social chit chat in a foreign language in the middle of the ward. Save it for the tea break.

I understand how u feel and i believe its more of an etiquette issue really. Basics of right manners, not to speak a different tongue wc cannot be understood by other people around... I myself kept on reminding most of my co-filipinos to abhor speaking Tagalog in front of the locals cuz its jus really, really rude... I find myself in the same situation whenevr theyr speakin their own dialect, and wld feel out of place and very annoyed.i just cant help feeling paranoid!!! I grew up in the city and some of us wld come from a province and I may not understand their own dialect as well..

I wld lyk to apologize for this unacceptable behavior of my co-filipinos. And to my fellow filipinos, its just plain and simple... Speak our language when we reach home and not at work where everybody else is arnd.. We r in their country and we must pay respect, im pretty sure they will respect us back if we render proper behavior.. I wont blame the locals if they find this particular attitude to be very primitive... thus, what the spaniards call, mal educados..

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Oh, so true.

Also, the nurses who chat in their mother tongue also stick very close to each other and stand up for each other even when in the wrong. Ranks close and its always you..

There u go... at least ur starting to talk now.. nobody will be called a racist unless we deal w/ the issue itself, and not the people, culture, language per se..

We Filipinos are diverse among ourselves.. We may come from the same country but different regions wld be unique in their own way...Lyk wot i said, we had oh, so many dialects and none of them i can speak or understand..Most of us wld come from different provinces/regions with their own set of culture, behavior and beliefs.. ther's a particular group of 'em who wld really stick w/ each other thru thick and thin, sadly even when in the wrong...

I went to an international school back home and ive seen tribalism to be very out of hand.. most of us just cant be unified among ourselves..if so, we couldve been one of the developed countries bec. we hav vast natural and man/manmade resources..

w/ ur issue, we wld experience the same thing as well among ourselves.. perhaps deal w/ em individually and give them a piece of ur mind..

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This is a difficult question. As a nurse who was trained and has worked in Britain I realise that foreign trained nurse can disadvantage nurses who have trained here, for example they will compete for courses and for bank shifts. ...

that's what i heard from a friend down in london.. these nurses are not living a lyf anymore and what they do is grab bank shifts, extra shifts..w/o even considering fair share of it w/ the locals... what a shame... must be those old (or close to being one), conservative, stereotyped bunch of little nurses we commonly have back home..

sigh!! most of them wld evenlook down on me whenever im seen puffing a stick!! duh!!

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From a british nurses' point of view regarding Phillipino nurses in England.

I really loathe the thought of peeps grudging foreign nurses. Nurses are nurses as long as they are competent to do their jobs. Incompetence is a different ball game.

We have had a massive recruitment of Phillipino nurses in my unit over the last two years and it has made life a lot easier. They are highly trained in the Phillipines and they did an adaptation course for 6 -12 months depending on their speciality and previous experience(s), boom, everyone works so well.

Peeps concerned about bank shifts should move their fat ar5es out and look for extra shifts else where. 'The sky is wide enough for birds to fly without traffic'.

Before the mass recruitments we were always working under severe situations of nurse shortages and now we have nurses to help everyone is moaning and complaining.

I suppose you need to get out more and see the number of British and American expatriates around the world.

I think we should get over it and stop flogging dead donkeys? Work together in harmony. My 2p worth.

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Now, I am going to go off topic...

I am currently working on the bank at an NHS hospital. I worked with a lovely girl when she was a student. She does lack some self confidence, but at the bedside, for a 3rd year student, she was good. As a bank memeber, I can't give her a reference.

So, here we have the situation described above, a shortage of nurses in UK. So why then, is this girl unemployed working as a B grade along with other students who have finished (they have PIn numbers). Why aren't they given jobs? Someone needs to give them a start in life. It's a shame, it really is. I'm starting to think that this nursing shortage isn't a shortage of nurses, it's a shortage of money. Better to have qualified nurses with years expereince from overseas who can cope with a heavy workload than a new D grade graduate who needs support for a few months.

Whoever is responsible for employing the nurses who have just graduated should hang their head in shame!!

I'm sorry pal i have say i don't believe that.

From my experience most 3rd year student nurses get jobs as RN before their final results. I have not met or heard of Newly qualified RNs working as auxillaries once their pins have been issued, before yes, NOT AFTER.

Can we please get our facts right before posting for the sake of posting. :angryfire

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For years we have had nurses from Australia and New Zealand filling posts in NHS hospitals as Agency nurses, we never complained, but now it's asian nurses, everyone's nose starts to flare.

Tell me that is not racism!!!!!!!!!!!

How can people have such attitudes when they are supposed to be caring for other people?

I'm out.

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I'm sorry but can you honestly tell me if any of us english speaking people were abroad in say france that we would avoid at all costs speaking in english for fear of offending the french. Please.

Furthermore, it's usually never about their english especially with Filipino staff. their english is usually word perfect - save for the slang.

i just think it's a bit petty.

The real issue is because you don't know

what they're saying and that is annoying, but in the whole spectrum... worth pursuing? i think not.

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Please.....does it really matter where a nurse originates from? Surely the important thing is can the nurse do her job in a safe and competent way.

Does it really offend you so much for nurses to speak in the language of their home countries around the nursing station? Surely allow them this small piece of home when they are so far away from it. As someone points out is it the fact you don't know what there saying that annoys you? If this is the case does it not occur to you that those nurses who may still be learning various "slang" or other english words may be annoyed when you start talking in slang.

Is it so hard for people to get on with other cultures and races these days, I thought nurses were supposed to be caring and compassionate people who treat others despite disabilities, race, culture etc.

As I said at the start of this post, so long as the nurse is safe and competent and both patients and staff are happy with the nurses competence then I really cannot see the propblem with what language they speak in round the nursing station or when they are with friends.

As for Filipino nurses sitting round the nursing station or the middle of the ward having a social chit chat.....I have yet to meet a lazy filipino nurse, the ones I work with are some of the hardest working nurses I have ever worked with.

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For years we have had nurses from Australia and New Zealand filling posts in NHS hospitals as Agency nurses, we never complained, but now it's asian nurses, everyone's nose starts to flare.

Tell me that is not racism!!!!!!!!!!!

How can people have such attitudes when they are supposed to be caring for other people?

I'm out.

I hope i wont get misinterpreted w/ this but i just wanted to share what i think probably y some locals are having flaring nares to see asian nurses around. Nurses from places lyk New Zealand, Canada and or Australia basically appear jus lyk one of you guys. With similarities among you its quite hard to tell w/c is w/c. Unlyk us asians, its very evident..:uhoh3:

skin, hair, eyes, accent, built... (sigh!) i cant be bothered now whnever i encounter people not fond of me and my likes.. ill jus do my job conscientiously, stay happy and keep my cool..it's their problem, not mine..as long as they "noli me tangere" (touch me not!)

its just too draining to bother these days.. ther r other ways to route my attention and energy.. :rolleyes:

But in fairness, I have worked in some places

and I find the people here much, much civilized than elsewhere. Civilized, i'd call it or humane in other terms.. civilized behavior matters most..

so, i think am gonna stay here longer(even if its raining a lot and ther r more gloomy days than sunny days).. as long as i have holidays, ill be fyn..

well, so far..one of our G grades are learning some phrases (in Tagalog) pretty nasty ones and use it among his British colleagues.. and none of 'em wld react nor complain or got offended, whatsoever, wer havin fun most of d tym really..:p

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I have worked with Filipino care assistants and Nurses, and they are all very hard workers!

The only problem I have encountered is in communication; differentiating between past, present, and future tenses, and speaking in first and second person, and the difference between questions and statements.

ie... a question of 'have you fed mr jones?' could be mistaken as someone is feeding mr jones, or can you feed mr jones, or i will feed mr jones, or i have fed mr jones.

I have heard that English is a difficult language to learn. Does anyone know if there are structural differences in the Filipino language for tenses, 1st and 2nd person, and questions?

Also, anyone know any Filipino words? I know that 'Atay' is respected one, but have forgotten the one for beatiful! Any other phrases (along with pronounciation) would be great!

Paul:rotfl:

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I have worked with Filipino care assistants and Nurses, and they are all very hard workers!

The only problem I have encountered is in communication; differentiating between past, present, and future tenses, and speaking in first and second person, and the difference between questions and statements.

ie... a question of 'have you fed mr jones?' could be mistaken as someone is feeding mr jones, or can you feed mr jones, or i will feed mr jones, or i have fed mr jones.

I have heard that English is a difficult language to learn. Does anyone know if there are structural differences in the Filipino language for tenses, 1st and 2nd person, and questions?

Also, anyone know any Filipino words? I know that 'Atay' is respected one, but have forgotten the one for beatiful! Any other phrases (along with pronounciation) would be great!

Paul:rotfl:

It's true that, we usually forget using the right pronoun for the 2nd person cuz we dont use he/she in our language, so we tend to interchange..:roll

Proper usage of the present tense, past participle and even future perfect tense gets out of proper construction when most of us are trying to speak ..

Come to think of it, we are trying to express and at the same tym, construct the sentences translated from our language to english, being conscious w/ the grammar as well..

Modesty aside, in my work place, we filipinos are complimented for our grammar, spelling conscious documentation in our care plans.. it jus happened that some are not very conscious enuf or didnt master the language very well..

I get tongue tied as well when Im trying to imitate the accent here :eek: (stoke!) jus to get understood. but once we had canadian/american MO's and there u go, me and some of my filipino colleagues can speak w/ more bliss..

ATAY is liver (who taught u it means respected one?)... beautiful is elnski...i mean (lol), kidding aside, it's maganda.. or simplify it, Tagalog-Spanish would be guapa (for females) or guapo (for males)..

The basic English education we had is the same w/ Americans, when you happen to speak w/ those who are unable to construct their sentences properly, or struggling to speak the language, it's an individual deficit (sorry my co-Filipinos), or lack of practice expressing verbally.. Phils is the 3rd country in the world where English is largely spoken/utilized according to a reliable source which i cant recall now. Believe it or not..:clown:

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Thankyou Maganda!

So I've been calling my co-workers 'Liver'?

Wonderful! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

How can I clarify the tense?

How can I clarify 'you' and 'me'

How can i clarify question or statement?

Could you give me a little more language, I'm willing to learn! I think we could all do with learning a little from you!

PS, love your foods.

Paul.:)

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